[There is an] immense advantage to be gained by ample space and appropriate surroundings in aiding the formation of a just idea of the beauty and interest of each specimen… Nothing detracts so much from...

I was always the kid in school that teachers were getting after to be quiet. My report card had math, A, reading, A, spelling, A, science, A, conduct, F. I was always talking to somebody....

Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged,...

I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face… Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent… but the benign...

If a solution fails to appear … and yet we feel success is just around the corner, try resting for a while. … Like the early morning frost, this intellectual refreshment withers the parasitic and...

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.

I stepped to the tank’s edge, leaned in, and concentrated on keeping my eyes open. Which fish would be the shooter? The fish were all facing me, but one in particular seemed to be staring...

Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.

You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by...

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night:God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

When I began my physical studies [in Munich in 1874] and sought advice from my venerable teacher Philipp von Jolly…he portrayed to me physics as a highly developed, almost fully matured science…Possibly in one or...

In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence...

A Dr van ‘t Hoff of the veterinary college at Utrecht… finds it a less arduous task to mount Pegasus (evidently borrowed from the veterinary school) and to proclaim in his La Chemie dans l’...

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

This climb was motivated by science. Every time Spirit has gained altitude, we’ve found different rock types. Also, we’re doing what any field geologist would do in an area like this: climbing to a good...

The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds – to say nothing of stars or galaxies – humans are inconsequential, a thin...

Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with...

William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last,...

Une civilisation sans la Science, ce serait aussi absurde qu’un poisson sans bicyclette.

The scientific study of suffering inevitably raises questions of causation, and with these, issues of blame and responsibility. Historically, doctors have highlighted predisposing vulnerability factors for developing PTSD, at the expense of recognizing the reality...

[Science] dissipates errors born of ignorance about our true relations with nature, errors the more damaging in that the social order should rest only on those relations. TRUTH! JUSTICE! Those are the immutable laws. Let...

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at...

All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.

[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.

Your environment defines you.

Strictly by accident, Scott stumbled upon the most advanced weapon in the ultrarunner’s arsenal: instead of cringing from fatigue, you embrace it. You refuse to let it go. You get know it so well, you’re...

I want people to unite behind the science… And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now.. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m...

The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once...

Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it.

A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put...

Real scientists do not take vacations. They take field trips…

It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations...

Credentials are like potential energy, the compliments of a name on paper, in documents, word of mouth, but faith is like kinetic energy, the motion and the force that which is witnessed. Hence in the...

Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though...

His Theory of the Universe seems to have been, that it consisted solely of a multitude of objects which could be weighed, numbered, and measured; and the vocation to which he considered himself called was,...

I have learned to have more trust in the scientist than he does in himself.

It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything or at least they are not science.

When scientific conversations cease, then dogma rather than knowledge begins to rule the day.

From the age of 13, I was attracted to physics and mathematics. My interest in these subjects derived mostly from popular science books that I read avidly. Early on I was fascinated by theoretical physics...

Sixty percent of our general budget goes to education. It would be ironic if electronic commerce erodes the science and math education that the visionary leaders of tomorrow need to keep this industry going.

We need to establish some kind of reasonable working level so the water for the science center and aquarium remains adequate while still allowing commerce. It’s a balance.

It appears that the solution of the problem of time and space is reserved to philosophers who, like Leibniz, are mathematicians, or to mathematicians who, like Einstein, are philosophers.

This skipping is another important point. It should be done whenever a proof seems too hard or whenever a theorem or a whole paragraph does not appeal to the reader. In most cases he will...

In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

In the vestibule of the Manchester Town Hall are placed two life-sized marble statues facing each other. One of these is that of John Dalton … the other that of James Prescott Joule. … Thus...

Life is not a miracle. It is a natural phenomenon, and can be expected to appear whenever there is a planet whose conditions duplicate those of the earth.[Stating how planets supporting life cannot be rare.]

No one can say if you are that person who, given good paint, good brushes, and a fine canvas, can produce something better than the factory man. That is, and has always been, beyond the...

The brain, which operates on electromagnetic impulses, is as much an activity of the universe as are the electromagnetic storms in the atmosphere or on a distant star. Therefore science is one form of electromagnetism...