Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ambrose Bierce

RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

Ambrose Bierce

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportioned to the quantity of matter they contain-the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

Ambrose Bierce

FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs

Ambrose Bierce

ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

Ambrose Bierce

APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor and grave worm's provider

Ambrose Bierce

ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

Ambrose Bierce

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker.

Ambrose Bierce

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

Ambrose Bierce

DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.

Ambrose Bierce

PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

Ambrose Bierce

PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.

Ambrose Bierce

MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.

Ambrose Bierce

Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.

Ambrose Bierce

To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

Alice Stewart

In the old days, they killed the messenger who brought the bad news... a Cassandra is never popular in her time.

Annie Jump Cannon

A life spent in the routine of science need not destroy the attractive human element of a woman's nature.

Anthony Burgess

I didn't think; I experimented.

Andrew Schneider

As a doctor, as a man of science, I can tell you there is no such thing as curses Everything just happens as a question of probability. The statistical likelihood of a specific event.

Ann Veneman

We are doing everything we can to protect the food supply. And I can tell you that we're making decisions based upon sound science and good public policy, given the circumstances that we are now in.

Anais Nin

Only when the poet and the scientist work in unison will we have living experiences and knowledge of the marvels of the universe as they are being discovered.

Alvin Toffler

The next major explosion is going to be when genetics and computers come together. I'm talking about an organic computer - about biological substances that can function like a semiconductor.

Andrew Wiles

Mathematics... is a bit like discovering oil. ... But mathematics has one great advantage over oil, in that no one has yet ... found a way that you can keep using the same oil forever.

William Shakespeare

The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous main, Seems to cast water on the burning Bear, And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.

James Hansen

You have no time to do the science if you're talking to the media.

Robert Frost

The best thing we're put here for's to see; The strongest thing that's given us to see with's a telescope. Someone in every town, seems to me, owes it to the town to keep one.

Robert Frost

And one of the three great things in the world is gossip, you know. First there's religion; and then there's science; and there's-and then there's friendly gossip. Those are the three-the three great things.

Richard E. Byrd

We men who serve science serve only a reflection in a mirror.

Rene Descartes

I should consider that I know nothing about physics if I were able to explain only how things might be, and were unable to demonstrate that they could not be otherwise.

Rene Descartes

The nature of matter, or body considered in general, consists not in its being something which is hard or heavy or coloured, or which affects the senses in any way, but simply in its being something which is extended in length, breadth and depth.

Rene Descartes

And thereby make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters of nature.

Thucydides

When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason.

Thomas Paine

Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.

Thomas Hunt Morgan

Except for the rare cases of plastid inheritance, the inheritance of all known cooacters can be sufficiently accounted for by the presence of genes in the chromosomes. In a word the cytoplasm may be ignored genetically.