10 Quotes by William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair.

It is the care we bestow on apparently trifling, unatractive and very troublesome minutiae which determines the result.

Cultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one's opinions and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are.

The most effective experimenters are usually those who give much thought to the problem beforehand and resolve it into crucial questions and then give much thought to designing experiments to answer the questions.

Paradoxical as it may at first appear, the fact is that, as W. H. George has said, scientific research is an art, not a science.

Hypothesis is a toll which can cause trouble if not used properly. We must be ready to abandon our hypothesis as soon as it is shown to be inconsistent with the facts.

Elaborate apparatus plays an important part in the science of to-day, but I sometimes wonder if we are not inclined to forget that the most important instrument in research must always be the mind of man.

Cultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one’s opinions and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are.

IN MANY respects the research worker resembles the pioneer. He explores the frontiers of knowledge and requires many of the same attributes: enterprise and initiative, readiness to face difficulties and overcome them with his own resourcefulness and ingenuity, perseverance, a spirit of adventure, a certain dissatisfaction with well-known territory and prevailing ideas, and an eagerness to try his own judgment. Probably.