Tedious as it may appear to some to dwell on the discovery of odds and ends that have, no doubt, been thrown away by the owner as rubbish … yet it is by the study...

In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I an now convinced...

As a scientist I have come to learn that information isonly as valuable as its source.

For excellent health and a good skin color, I recommend that people sit next to a shady ultraviolet transmitting window when indoors.

… science demands a terrible price – that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.

The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for...

For who could better describe the eye than God, Who made it? But as it is clearer than the day that God has left a good deal to our own efforts … we should really...

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one...

[To] explain the phenomena of the mineral kingdom … systems are usually reduced to two classes, according as they refer to the origin of terrestrial bodies to FIRE or to WATER; and … their followers...

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. I remember,...

It’s not rocket science. But there is a big difference between what works in the lab and works in the real world. We still have to see how well it will work out.

God loves atheists. The former ones make the most compelling theists because they’re so empirically familiar with how atheists think.

This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

The history of the astronomy of the nineteenth century will be incomplete without a catalogue of his labours. He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society, and his attention to its affairs was...

We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the crimes of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they...

The only valid faith today is disbelief.

When you view your world exclusively through the lens of science, your prescription will never be strong enough.

A common fallacy in much of the adverse criticism to which science is subjected today is that it claims certainty, infallibility and complete emotional objectivity. It would be more nearly true to say that it...

Two-thirds of all preachers, doctors and lawyers are hanging on to the coat tails of progress, shouting, whoa! while a good many of the rest are busy strewing banana peels along the line of march.

Science.” I don’t believe in it. Science has yet to validate my disbelief in Bigfoot.

To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called ‘philosophical systems’; with bewitching deceptive power they show the...

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

A great discovery solves a great problem, but there is a grain of discovery in the solution of any problem. Your problem may be modest, but if it challenges your curiosity and brings into play...

(Ivan) Hold your tongue, or I’ll kill you!(The devil) You’ll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young...

[At the beginning of modern science], a light dawned on all those who study nature. They comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design; that it must...

Anyhow, many people in the soft sciences are prone to be wrong because they’re crazy** some are dumb, too, but that’s another story.

The Tanakee are thought to possess strange, almost supernatural powers.Their eyes are described as large and hypnotic.” From Tribe of the Teddy Bear

While most science moves in a sort of curve, being constantly corrected by new evidence, this science flies off into space in a straight line uncorrected by anything. But the habit of forming conclusions, as...

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...

To believe in nothing is as ridiculous as to believe in everything. Reason and factual evidence may convert a belief into knowledge.

The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object—Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes...

Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind since 1832. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut...

In the twentieth century, science has been everything and the arts almost nothing by comparison. As a result, many artists now pretend to be scientists. They try to imitate the strategies of science. Paintings that...

According to the conclusion of Dr. Hutton, and of many other geologists, our continents are of definite antiquity, they have been peopled we know not how, and mankind are wholly unacquainted with their origin.

I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science. The mathematical...

Religion is just an interpretation; science is another one.

The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes,...

At this point in history, our society tends to elevate and reward the specialist…This concentrated focus has brought some benefits…It may also be a modern malady. Specialization, when taken too far and allowed to define...

Scientific reality is as different from lived reality as a slide rule is from a platypus.

As I grew up I was fervently desirous of becoming acquainted with Nature.

Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers,...

Ich weiß nicht, aber mich dünkt, ich sähe zwei Wege um zur Wissenschaft der menschlichen Geschichte zu gelangen. Der eine, mühsam und unabsehlich, mit unzähligen Krümmungen, der Weg der Erfahrung; der andere, fast ein Sprung...

The crime which is done now is that war has made a tool and slave of science, and man’s knowledge, painfully and laboriously compiled, is made the instrument of man’s destruction.

scientists” of the period. Formerly this would have implied a rather uncritical leaning towards materialism, and an affectation of cynicism; but by now it was fashionable to profess an equally uncritical belief that all natural...

I furnished the body that was needed to sit in the defendant’s chair.[Explaining his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial.]

Some people with Tourette’s have flinging tics- sudden, seemingly motiveless urges or compulsions to throw objects….. (I see somewhat similar flinging behaviors- though not tics- in my two year old godson, now in a stage...

Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color...

One night I begged Robin, a scientist by training, to watch Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ with me on PBS. He lasted about one act, then turned to me in horror: ‘This is how...