Pragmatism in Physics, in P. Weingartner, G. Schurz & G. Dorn (Eds.), The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy. Vienna: Holder-Pichler-Tempsky (1998), p. 245, ISSN=1026-9347.
“What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.”
Source: [Wiener, N., A New Theory of Measurement: A Study in the Logic of Mathematics, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, s2-19, 1, 1921, 181–205, 0024-6115, 10.1112/plms/s2-19.1.181]
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Norbert Wiener 36
American mathematician 1894–1964Related quotes

Conversations with Einstein by Alexander Moszkowski (1971), p. 69 http://books.google.com/books?id=_D3wAAAAIAAJ&q=%22first+lessons+should+contain+nothing+but+what%22#search_anchor. This is just Moszkowski's English translation of a statement he attributed to Einstein in his 1922 book Einstein, Einblicke in seine Gedankenwelt, p. 77 http://books.google.com/books?id=6zHPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false: "Was die Physik betrifft, fuhr Einstein fort, so darf für den ersten Unterricht gar nichts in Frage kommen, als das Experimentelle, anschaulich-Interessante. Ein hübsches Experiment ist schon an sich oft wertvoller, als zwanzig in der Gedankenretorte entwickelte Formeln." As Moszkowski makes clear in the original German text, this "quotation" is a paraphrasing of his conversation with Einstein.
Attributed in posthumous publications

Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)

“The experience of the world is worth more than the experience of any one man.”
E.W. Howe's Monthly January 1912.
Charles Plott, cited in: Michel Meyer (2001), Economic Theory and Explanation, p. 338
Source: Philosophical Sketches (1962), Ch. 9, p. 160

“I have always been more interested in experiment, than in accomplishment.”