8,157 Quotes About Science

Light brings us the news of the Universe.

I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.

Those were just successes. But how many failures did the scientists have to see? How many times did their rockets not orbit the planet, or not take off at all? How many times had they dreamed about landing on the moon, only to realize that they couldn't make it happen, not yet?

Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?[Lutheran theologian Abraham Calovius illustrating his objection to heliocentrism due to the Bible's support of geocentrism]

But the castration of perception by a court of control that denies it any anticipatory desire, forces it thereby into a pattern of helplessly reiterating what is already known.

The landed classes neglected technical education, taking refuge in classical studies; as late as 1930, for example, long after Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge had discovered the atomic nucleus and begun transmuting elements, the physics laboratory at Oxford had not been wired for electricity. Intellectual neglect technical education to this day.[Describing C.P. Snow's observations on the neglect of technical education.]

Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.

[They] pervert the course of nature [by saying] the sun does not move and that it is the earth that revolves and that it turns.[John Calvin illustrating his opposition to heliocentrism in a sermon due to the Bible's support of geocentrism]

There have been many authorities who have asserted that the basis of science lies in counting or measuring, i.e. in the use of mathematics. Neither counting nor measuring can however be the most fundamental processes in our study of the material universe—before you can do either to any purpose you must first select what you propose to count or measure, which presupposes a classification.