Motivational Quotes

Science

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

- Noam Chomsky

Best Quotes about Science

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.

Franklin, Benjamin

In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs.

Sir Francis Darwin

There are no better terms available to describe [The] difference between the approach of the natural and the social sciences than to call the former objective and the latter subjective. ... While for the natural scientist the contrast between objective facts and subjective opinions is a simple one, the distinction cannot as readily be applied to the object of the social sciences. The reason for this is that the object, the facts of the social sciences are also opinions -- not opinions of the student of the social phenomena, of course, but opinions of those whose actions produce the object of the social scientist.

Hayek, Friedrich August Von

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

Ruskin, John

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Science is all metaphor.

Leary, Timothy

My conscience aches but it's going to lose the fight.

Myles, Allanah

There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.

James, P. D.

10.

Honor is the moral conscience of the great.

D'Avenant

11.

Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.

Thomas H. Huxley

12.

Science is but an image of the truth.

Bacon, Francis

13.

Science is intimately integrated with the whole social structure and cultural tradition. They mutually support one other -- only in certain types of society can science flourish, and conversely without a continuous and healthy development and application of science such a society cannot function properly.

Parsons, Talcott

14.

True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

15.

Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.

Sontag, Susan

16.

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

Asimov, Isaac

17.

Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20 -- 20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.

Pirsig, Robert M.

18.

While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley

19.

Truth in science can best be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

Lorenz, Konrad

20.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

21.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

Butler, Samuel

22.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions -- largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done.

Kipling, Rudyard

23.

The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.

Walton, Izaak

24.

Man lives for science as well as bread.

James, William

25.

From man or angel the great Architect did wisely to conceal, and not divulge his secrets to be scanned by them who ought rather admire; or if they list to try conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens left to their disputes, perhaps to move his laughter at their quaint opinions wide hereafter, when they come to model heaven calculate the stars, how they will wield the mighty frame, how build, unbuild, contrive to save appearances, how gird the sphere with centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, and epicycle, orb in orb.

Milton, John

26.

Conscience is a man's compass.

Gogh, Vincent Van

27.

Conscience: self-esteem with a halo.

Layton, Irving

28.

A seared conscience is one whose warning voice has been suppressed and perverted habitually, so that eventually instead of serving as a guide, it only confirms the person in his premeditatedly evil course.

Little, Robert J.

29.

Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.

Einstein, Albert

30.

Science knows only one commandment -- contribute to science.

Brecht, Bertolt

31.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

Diderot, Denis

32.

Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart.

Cook, Joseph

33.

Since we are assured that the all-wise Creator has observed the most exact proportions of number, weight and measure in the make of all things, the most likely way therefore to get any insight into the nature of those parts of the Creation which come within our observation must in all reason be to number, weigh and measure.

Hales, Stephen

34.

Science is not about control. It is about cultivating a perpetual sense of wonder in the face of something that forever grows one step richer and subtle than our latest theory about it. It is about reverence, not mastery.

Powers, Richard

35.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

36.

Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

Mencken, H. L.

37.

Faith is a fine invention when Gentleman can see -- but microscopes are prudent in an emergency

Dickinson, Emily

38.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Martin Luther King Jr.

39.

The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers.

Didion, Joan

40.

The mythology of science asserts that with many different scientists all asking their own questions and evaluating the answers independently, whatever personal bias creeps into their individual answers is cancelled out when the large picture is put together. This might conceivably be so if scientists were women and men from all sorts of different cultural and social backgrounds who came to science with very different ideologies and interests. But since, in fact, they have been predominantly university-trained white males from privileged social backgrounds, the bias has been narrow and the product often reveals more about the investigator than about the subject being researched.

Hubbard, Ruth

41.

The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.

Churchill, Winston

42.

Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

43.

Conscience is the dog that can't bite, but never stops barking.

Proverb

44.

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

Kraus, Karl

45.

The more we learn of science, the more we see that its wonderful mysteries are all explained by a few simple laws so connected together and so dependent upon each other, that we see the same mind animating them all.

Brown, Olympia

46.

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

Carl Sagan

47.

Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.

Dick, Philip K.

48.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

49.

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.

Quincey, Thomas De

50.

Nevertheless, in order to imbue civilization with sound principles and enliven it with the spirit of the gospel, it is not enough to be illumined with the gift of faith and enkindled with the desire of forwarding a good cause. For this end it is necessary to take an active part in the various organizations and influence them from within. And since our present age is one of outstanding scientific and technical progress and excellence, one will not be able to enter these organizations and work effectively from within unless he is scientifically competent, technically capable and skilled in the practice of his own profession.

Pope John XXIII