Famous Quotes & Sayings

Richard Dawkins

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Tryon Edwards

Nature hath nothing made so base, but can read some instruction to the wisest man.

William Wordsworth

"One impulse from a vernal wood

Richard Louv

Increasingly the evidence suggests that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.

Richard Louv

Research suggests that exposure to the natural world - including nearby nature in cities - helps improve human health, well-being, and intellectual capacity in ways that science is only recently beginning to understand.

Richard Louv

Numerous studies document the benefits to students from school grounds that are ecologically diverse and include free play areas, habitats for wildlife, walking trails, and gardens.

Richard Louv

The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.

Richard Francis Burton

Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Civilization, man feels once more happy.

Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today But a brown bird sang in the apple tree And a butterfly flitted across the field And all the leaves were calling me.

Richard Perle

Even now, the irony that so non-intellectual a man should choose to engage the Soviet Union on the battlefield of ideas has eluded most commentators and historians.

Richard Paul Evans

. . .and every native has a story of winter – stories that usually begin, You call this a storm? And grow in the telling like battle tales shared by graying war veterans. It’s a peculiar character flaw to those of us from cold climates that we feel superior to those who have the sense to live elsewhere.

Richard Holbrooke

The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.

Townsend Harris

If war should break out between England and Japan, the latter would suffer much more than the former.

Townsend Harris

The President of the United States thinks that for the Japanese opium is more dangerous than war.

Townsend Harris

The expense of a war could be paid in time; but the expense of opium, when once the habit is formed, will only increase with time.

Rick Riordan

Wow. When he started looking back on the war with Kronos as the good old days--that was sad.

Rick Riordan

When I was alive, I mean the first time, Mussolini was in charge. We were at war.” “Mussolini?” Leo frowned. “Wasn’t he like BFFs with Hitler?

Rick Riordan

I never thought I'd get to see Rome," Hazel said. "When I was alive, I mean for the first time, Mussolini was in charge. We were at war." "Mussolini?" Leo frowned. "Wasn't he like BFF's with Hitler?" Hazel stared at him like he was an alien. "BFF's?" "Never mind." "I'd love to see the Trevi Fountain," she said. "There's a fountain on every block," Leo grumbled. "Or the Spanish Steps," Hazel said. "Why would you come to Italy to see Spanosh steps?" Leo asked. "That's like going to China for Mexican food, isn't it?" "You're hopeless," Hazel complained. "So I've been told.

Richard P. Feynman

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

Richard P. Feynman

Unless a thing can be defined by measurement, it has no place in a theory. And since an accurate value of the momentum of a localized particle cannot be defined by measurement it therefore has no place in the theory.

Richard P. Feynman

It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

Richard P. Feynman

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

Richard P. Feynman

Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.

Richard P. Feynman

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

Richard P. Feynman

The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. ... If you will simply admit that maybe [Nature] does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Richard P. Feynman

If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.

Richard Dawkins

Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund.