„Science had better not free the minds of men too much, before it has tamed their instincts.“
— Jean Rostand French writer 1894 - 1977
[Jean Rostand, The substance of men, Doubleday, 1962, 19]
Quotes about science
A collection of quotes on the topic of science.
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„Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.“
— Max Planck German theoretical physicist 1858 - 1947
Variants:
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature, for in the final analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
Source: Where is Science Going? (1932)
„Long and tedious reflection cannot enable us to shape our decisions and attitudes properly; only that definite and clear instruction which we gain can form a direct inner link to God. This instruction alone is able to give us the inner firmness and lasting peace of mind which must be regarded as the highest boon in life. And if we ascribe to God, in addition to His omnipotence and omniscience, also the attributes of goodness and love, recourse to Him produces an increased feeling of safety and happiness in the human being thirsting for solace. Against this conception not even the slightest objection can be raised from the point of natural science, for as we pointed it out before, questions of ethics are entirely outside of its realm.“
— Max Planck German theoretical physicist 1858 - 1947
Religion and Natural Science (1937)
„All other sciences are called speculative: they are not concerned with the deeds of the present or future life affecting man's salvation or damnation. All procedures of art and of nature are“
— Roger Bacon, book Opus Tertium
Source: Opus Tertium, c. 1267, Ch. 14 as quoted in J. H. Bridges, The 'Opus Majus' of Roger Bacon (1900) Vol.1 http://books.google.com/books?id=6F0XAQAAMAAJ Preface pp.x-xi
Context: All these foregoing sciences are, properly speaking, speculative. There is indeed in every science a practical side, as Avicenna teaches in the first book of his Art of Medicine. Nevertheless, of Moral Philosophy alone can it be said that it is in the special and autonomatic sense practical, dealing as it does with human conduct with reference to virtue and vice, beatitude and misery. All other sciences are called speculative: they are not concerned with the deeds of the present or future life affecting man's salvation or damnation. All procedures of art and of nature are directed to these moral actions, and exist on account of them. They are of no account except in that they help forward right action. Thus practical and operative sciences, as experimental alchemy and the rest, are regarded as speculative in reference to the operations with which moral or political science is concerned. This science is the mistress of every department of philosophy. It employs and controls them for the advantage of states and kingdoms. It directs the choice of men who are to study in sciences and arts for the common good. It orders all members of the state or kingdom so that none shall remain without his proper work.
„Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. … Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.“
— Roger Bacon, book Opus Majus
cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world. p. 1
Opus Majus, c. 1267
„Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.“
— Aleister Crowley poet, mountaineer, occultist 1875 - 1947
Introduction.
Source: Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.
(Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magical weapons", pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations" — these sentences — in the "magical language" ie, that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth "spirits", such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will.)
In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar.
„Fortunate those who, born before science, were privileged to die of their first disease!“
— Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
„If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.“
— Emil M. Cioran Romanian philosopher and essayist 1911 - 1995
Tears and Saints (1937)
„The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.“
— Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo
Source: Life of Galileo (1939)
„I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is — I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it.“
— George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States 1946
emphasis added
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050519182609990007&ncid=NWS00010000000001 AP, 21 May 2005
2000s, 2005
„Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.“
— Rosalind Franklin British chemist, biophysicist, and X-ray crystallographer 1920 - 1958
in answer to her father, who accused her of making science her religion, as related by [Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Perennial, 2003, 0060985089, 61]
„It is striking that one of the most consequential representatives of this abstract scientific orientation of the seventeenth century became so personalistic. This is because as a juristic thinker he wanted to grasp the reality of societal life just as much as he, as a philosopher and natural scientist, wanted to grasp the reality of nature. He did not discover that there is a juristic reality and life that need not be reality in the sense of the natural sciences. Mathematical relativism and nominalism also operate concurrently. Often he seemed to be able to construct the unity of the state from any arbitrary given point. But juristic thought in those days had not yet become so overpowered by the natural sciences that he, in the intensity of his scientific approach, should unsuspectingly have overlooked the specific reality of legal life inherent in the legal form. The form that he sought lies in the concrete decision, one that emanates from a particular authority. In the independent meaning of the decision, the subject of the decision has an independent meaning, apart from the question of content. What matters for the reality of legal life is who decides.“
— Carl Schmitt German jurist, political theorist and professor of law 1888 - 1985
Political Theology (1922), Ch. 2 : The Problem of Sovereignty as the Problem of the Legal Form and of the Decision
„Let us consider Buddhism and contemporary science. It is evident that Buddhists are most open to all evolutionary achievements. Of course, this quality was instilled by their basic Teaching. Becoming familiar with the foundations we see how greatly the statements of the Teacher are confirmed by the achievements of our contemporary science. The same results which Einstein reached by way of experiment were reached by ancient Buddhists in a purely contemplative way.“
— Helena Roerich Russian philosopher 1879 - 1955
Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)
„Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods.“
— W. H. Auden, book The Dyer's Hand
"The Virgin & The Dynamo", p. 62
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
„He is the master who, after reaching the furthest shores and plumbing the inmost depths of the sea of ultimate knowledge of mathematics, kinematics and spherics, handed over the three sciences to the learned world.“
— Aryabhata Indian mathematician-astronomer 476 - 550
Bhaskara I, quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson "Aryabhata the Elder".
„Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short. For thousands of years it has existed and has been growing older; but in the earlier part of this period it cannot boast of any continuous progress toward a riper and richer development. In the fourth century before our era that giant thinker, Aristotle, built it up into an edifice comparing very favorably with any other science of that time. But this edifice stood without undergoing any noteworthy changes or extensions, well into the eighteenth or even the nineteenth century. Only in recent times do we find an advance, at first slow but later increasing in rapidity, in the development of psychology.“
— Hermann Ebbinghaus German psychologist 1850 - 1909
Source: Psychology: An elementary textbook, 1908, p. 3: Partly cited in: Edwin Boring (1929) A History of Experimental Psychology p. ix
„He lived in a period of competitive patronage of the sciences, especially mathematics and astronomy, in the Middle East and Central Asia. He is said to have been a high administrative official in a small principality made up of Basra, in what is now Iraq, and the adjacent region of Ahwâz.“
— Alhazen Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer 965 - 1039
Abdelhamid I. Sabra, in “Ibn al-Haytham Brief life of an Arab mathematician: died circa 1040 (September-October 2003)”
„That the universe has organized its own self-awareness – is for me powerful evidence that there is 'something going on' behind it all. The impression of design is overwhelming. Science may explain all the processes whereby the universe evolves its own destiny, but that still leaves room for there to be a meaning behind existence.“
— Paul Davies British physicist 1946
Source: The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries In Nature's Creative Ability To Order Universe (1988), Ch. 14: 'Is There a Blueprint?', p. 203