“Science is not inevitable; this question is very fruitful indeed.”
In personal correspondence, quoted in Elisabeth Nemeth's chapter "Logical Empiricism and the History and Sociology of Science" in the Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism (2007) edited by Alan W. Richardson and Thomas Uebel.
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Edgar Zilsel 1
Austrian historian and philosopher 1891–1944Related quotes

"How Easy to See the Future", Natural History magazine (April 1975);
General sources

“But the fruit that can fall without shaking
Indeed is too mellow for me.”
The Answer.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Useful quantification is so often the key to fruitful science.”
"Exultation and Explanation", p. 184
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Modern Science and Pantheism, p.97

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

“The whole iconography of ancient science is simply the fruit of wishful thinking.”
Preface.
A History of Science Vol.2 Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. (1959)

Revue Scientifique (1871)
Variant translation: There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.