Science Quotes

“Unassuming in manner, genial and kindly in his intercourse with his fellow-men, never showing impatience or irritation, devoid of personal ambition of the baser sort or of the slightest desire to exalt himself... In the minds of those who knew him, the greatness of his intellectual achievements will never overshadow the beauty and dignity of his life.[H.A. Burnstead's comments on the life of esteemed scientist J. Willard Gibbs]”

“The concept of 'green jobs' or a 'green economy' is often attacked as the work of the Grimm Brothers by those wedded to the grim science of free-market economics.”

“I'm not so interested any more in how a great deal of science fiction goes. It goes into things like Star Wars and Star Trek which all go excellent in their own way.”

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

“Those ignorant "masters of our destinies" who regard humans as animals or as monstrous hybrids of natural and supernatural must be dethroned by scientific education.Humans can be literally poisoned by false ideas and false teachings. Many people have a just horror at the thought of putting poison into tea or coffee, but seem unable to realize that, when they teach false ideas and false doctrines, they are poisoning the time-binding capacity of their fellow men and women. One has to stop and think!”

“Science and literature are both ways to ask questions about why we're here.”

“We must face up to a difficult paradox: The U.S. can maintain a leading position in science only by giving up its desire to be number one.”

“I'm a big believer that science is part of a larger cultural thing. Science is not all by itself.”

“in 2011, Rachel and I founded a company called Caribou Biosciences to commercialize the Cas proteins.”

“...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.”

“Meteorites don’t fall on the Earth. They fall on the Sun and the Earth gets in the way.” - John W. Campbell”

“Magic is only unexplained science. Science is explained magic. When I study science, I study magic. When I study magic, I study science.”

“Doing science at the highest level is hard for anyone. It's hard for women, and it's hard for the men. And we need to have supportive mentors and role models we can look up to.”

“I read science fiction every single day of my life. It's my primary love.”

“The fundamental characteristic of the scientific method is honesty. In dealing with any question, science asks no favors. ... I believe that constant use of the scientific method must in the end leave its impress upon him who uses it. ... A life spent in accordance with scientific teachings would be of a high order. It would practically conform to the teachings of the highest types of religion. The motives would be different, but so far as conduct is concerned the results would be practically identical.”

“Aggression in bears can be and often is a stepping stone to friendship. Friendship and alliances frequently develop by repeated interactions, with initial aggression that lessens over time.”

“A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth.”

“Everyone in the astronaut program has a degree in a science field. The crew are the ones who do the experiments, help to design some of the experiments that come from other primary researchers. So it becomes very important that you have a science background.”

“One day at Fenner's (the university cricket ground at Cambridge), just before the last war, G. H. Hardy and I were talking about Einstein. Hardy had met him several times, and I had recently returned from visiting him. Hardy was saying that in his lifetime there had only been two men in the world, in all the fields of human achievement, science, literature, politics, anything you like, who qualified for the Bradman class. For those not familiar with cricket, or with Hardy's personal idiom, I ought to mention that “the Bradman class” denoted the highest kind of excellence: it would include Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Newton, Archimedes, and maybe a dozen others. Well, said Hardy, there had only been two additions in his lifetime. One was Lenin and the other Einstein.”