Famous Quotes & Sayings

In right-angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle.

Erwin Chargaff

If at one time or another I have brushed a few colleagues the wrong way, I must apologize: I had not realized that they were covered with fur.

Erwin Chargaff

One of the most insidious and nefarious properties of scientific models is their tendency to take over, and sometimes supplant, reality.

Florence Nightingale

Averages ... seduce us away from minute observation.

Fletcher Knebel

It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

Eugene Wigner

The unreasonable efficiency of mathematics in science is a gift we neither understand nor deserve.

Francis Crick

Evolution is cleverer than you are.

Francis Crick

Protein synthesis is a central problem for the whole of biology, and that it is in all probability closely related to gene action.

Francis Crick

Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs.

Francis Crick

There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper.

Francis Bacon

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

Francis Bacon

The divisions of science are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the branches of trees that join in one trunk.

Francis Bacon

Take an arrow, and hold it in flame for the space of ten pulses, and when it cometh forth you shall find those parts of the arrow which were on the outsides of the flame more burned, blacked, and turned almost to coal, whereas the midst of the flame will be as if the fire had scarce touched it. This is an instance of great consequence for the discovery of the nature of flame; and sheweth manifestly, that flame burneth more violently towards the sides than in the midst.

Francis Bacon

There is nothing more certain in nature than that it is impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated.

Francis Bacon

...those experiments be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but those principally which are of most universal consequence for invention of other experiments, and those which give more light to the invention of causes; for the invention of the mariner's needle, which giveth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion.

Francis Bacon

[Science is] the labor and handicraft of the mind.

Francis Bacon

The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond... But he is no less an unskilled and shallow philosopher who seeks causes of that which is most general, than he who in things subordinate and subaltern omits to do so

Francis Bacon

It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

Francis Bacon

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

Francis Bacon

There is no doubt but men of genius and leisure may carry our method to greater perfection, but, having had long experience, we have found none equal to it for the commodiousness it affords in working with the Understanding.

Francis Bacon

Half of science is putting forth the right questions.

Francis Bacon

The only hope [of science] ... is in genuine induction.

Francis Bacon

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

Francis Bacon

Wonder is the seed of knowledge

Francis Bacon

By far the best proof is experience.

Francis Bacon

Let the mind be enlarged... to the grandeur of the mysteries, and not the mysteries contracted to the narrowness of the mind

Frances Wright

The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.

Fran Lebowitz

modern science was largely conceived of as an answer to the servant problem and ... it is generally practiced by those who lack a flair for conversation.

George Wald

[Attributing the origin of life to spontaneous generation.] However improbable we regard this event, it will almost certainly happen at least once.... The time... is of the order of two billion years.... Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald

Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited.

George Wald

It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

George Santayana

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

George Orwell

For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?