Best 423 quotes in «scientist quotes» category

The biggest thing that Stephen Hawking taught me is that an extremely sickly and sedentary person can live to the ripe old age of seventy six.

The creatures I seek do not want to be seen.

The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it. Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction.

Theories cannot claim to be indestructible. They are only the plough which the ploughman uses to draw his furrow and which he has every right to discard for another one, of improved design, after the harvest. To be this ploughman, to see my labours result in the furtherance of scientific progress, was the height of my ambition, and now the Swedish Academy of Sciences has come, at this harvest, to add the most brilliant of crowns.

The mad scientist has gone crazy for a reason, and that reason typically lies in biologically toxic environmental exposures.

The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.

There is an overflowing grace, for every great work.

There is an inexplicable sense of relief in being proven wrong, which perhaps can only be realized by either a scientist or a philosopher.

Without the basic humane connection, even the expertise of a scientist turns worthless.

The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.

This man [Alexander von Humboldt] is as knowledgeable as a whole academy.

Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound... {His second motto, from King Lear by Shakespeare}

Vulnerable, like all men, to the temptations of arrogance, of which intellectual pride is the worst, he [the scientist] must nevertheless remain sincere and modest, if only because his studies constantly bring home to him that, compared with the gigantic aims of science, his own contribution, no matter how important, is only a drop in the ocean of truth.

The world is most consistent with purposeful creation.

Think of facts and figures as bricks and cement, and science or scientific understanding as a building. Without the vision of the architect, it's impossible to construct the building no matter how much bricks and cement you have.

This [discovery of a cell-free yeast extract] will make him famous, even though he has no talent for chemistry. {Comment on German scientist Eduard Buchner who later ironically won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery}

True understanding is an indivisible land of liberation beyond all judgement and all conclusions.

18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.

You make experiments and I make theories. Do you know the difference? A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it. {Remark to scientist Herman Francis Mark}

You want to test our apples?" Carter asked. "I want to find out what makes them taste so special so that we can share that with other people, maybe lots of them." Grace saw Carter's perplexed expression. "You ever had a fruit-flavored soft drink?" "Like an orange soda?" "Exactly. Well, somebody found the perfect orange somewhere, studied it carefully, and then made a formula based on its special flavor so that anyone anywhere in the world could taste it." "In a can of soda." "Right." "Very cool." "Do you like peach ice cream?" "Yes!" "Well, a lot of the 'all-natural peach flavoring' that you taste in that ice cream is really Gamma-Aldehyde C-14, a molecule created by Nanjing Yuance Trade Company, which I'm sure is based on a perfect peach they found somewhere." "So you're like a scientist-cook," Carter said excitedly. "Something like that." Grace smiled.

All women scientists should marry, rear children, cook, and clean in order to achieve fulfillment, to be a complete woman.

A computer scientist is a machine for converting coffee into urine.

A first-rate laboratory is one in which mediocre scientists can produce outstanding work.

A great scientist is more open to a new idea than almost anybody.

Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social scientists when he said, "God must have loved the people of lower and middle socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them.

A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.

Alice Stewart [is] a much underestimated scientist who has been an indomitable challenger of the establishment and a thorn in the flesh of the nuclear industry.

Although the term dialogue was really a euphemism for scientists trying to kill each other, this format worked very well.

Although scientists can often be as resistant to new ideas as anyone, the process of science ensures that, over time, good ideas and theories prevail.

And when statesman or others worry [the scientist] too much, then he should leave with his possessions.

Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.

And yet I would not freely exchange my science for those of my fellow laureates. They are forever confined in their professional discussions to the small numbers of their fellow scientists.

As a Christian Scientist, I don't go to doctors and get diagnoses.

art itself shuns commonality: while the scientist may seek the phenomenon that repeats itself, the artist seeks the exception.

As a citizen, as a public scientist, I can tell you that Einstein essentially overturned a so strongly established paradigm of science, whereas Darwin didn't really overturn a science paradigm.

As a scientist, you're not supposed to make decisions without the data.

A scientist is happy, not in resting on his attainments but in the steady acquisition of fresh knowledge.

A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.

A scientist is only a human being, a particle in the whole universe. How can the observations and logic of a particle measure the life and size of a phenomenon that is limitless?

A scientist should be the happiest of men.

A scientist sounds like a scientist because the things that come out of their mouth don't stumble, that's all. If they [said], "And the, um, a microwave, uh," you know, then you don't sound right, but if you can just get it out without stumbling then you're going to sound fine.

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.

A scientist ought to have a healthy disregard for coincidences.

A scientist who is also a human being cannot rest while knowledge which might be used to reduce suffering rests on the shelf.

Computer scientists stand on each other's feet.

Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement

But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about.

Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

Computer scientists are the historians of computing.

At a recent conference, a colleague told one of us that in IPCC discussions, some scientists have been reluctant to make strong claims about the scientific evidence, lest contrarians "attack us". Another said that she'd rather err on the side of conservatism in her estimates, because then she feels more "secure.