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Category Science

Featured Quote in Science

The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out.
Richard Feynman Horizon: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out · 1981

Subcategories

Scientific method (19) Physics (1) Natural philosophy (6) Biology (4) Medicine (6) Astronomy (1) Technology (1) Discovery (3)

Science Quotes

“The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out.”

Richard Feynman · Horizon: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, 1981 · Primary source

“In the field of observations, chance favors only the prepared mind.”

Louis Pasteur · Lecture, University of Lille, 1854 · Primary source

“Knowledge is of no real value if all you can tell me is what happened yesterday. It is necessary to tell what will happen tomorrow.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Richard Feynman · Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985 · Primary source

“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn a living at it. One should earn one’s living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anyone can we find joy in scientific endeavor.”

Albert Einstein · Letter to E. Holzapfel, 1951 · Primary source

“Life starts in the sea. There it attains to an extraordinary efficiency. The fishes give rise to types which are so successful (such for instance as the sharks) that they have lasted on unchanged until to-day. The path of ascending evolution did not however lie in this direction. In Evolution Dr. Inge’s aphorism is probably always right: ‘Nothing fails likes success.’ A creature which has become perfectly adapted to its environment, an animal whose whole capacity and vital force is concentrated and expended in succeeding here and now, has nothing left over with which to respond to any radical change. Age by age it becomes more perfectly economical in the way its entire resources meet exactly its current and customary opportunities. In the end it can do all that is necessary to survive without any conscious striving or unadapted movement. It can therefore beat all competitors in the special field but equally on the other hand should that field change it must become extinct. It is this success of efficiency which seems to account for the extinction of an enormous number of species. Climatic conditions altered. They had used up all their resources of vital energy in adapting to things as they were. Like unwise virgins they had no oil left over for further adaptations. They were committed, could not readjust and so they vanished.”

Gerald Heard · The Source of Civilization, 1935 · Primary source

“Addiction can happen to any of us through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until when they are too strong to be broken.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the Moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

John F. Kennedy · Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort, 1962 · Primary source

“Give me a place to stand [and a lever long enough], and I will move the Earth.”

Archimedes · Book VIII of the Mathematical Collection, 320 · Secondary source

“But we must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.”

Marie Curie · The Discovery of Radium, 1921 · Primary source

“A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability.”

Albert Einstein · Autobiographical Notes, 1949 · Primary source

“It is interesting that human relationships, if there is an independent way of judging truth, can become unargumentative.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“Biological creatures ordinarily prefer effort minimization in routine activities and don’t like removals of long-enjoyed benefits.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Many things were adopted in the war which we were told were technically impossible, but patience, perseverance, and, above all, the spur of necessity under war conditions, made men’s brains act with greater vigour, and science responded to the demands.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“He’s a fool that makes his doctor his heir.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”

Jack London · The Call of the Wild, 1903 · Primary source

“I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend to you a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.”

Ernest Hemingway · A Farewell to Arms, 1929 · Primary source

“The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.”

Richard Feynman · The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 1961-1964 · Primary source

“The only way to have real success in science, the field I’m familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what’s good and what’s bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.”

Richard Feynman · What Do You Care What Other People Think?, 1986 · Primary source

“There is no sense in calculating the probability or the chance that something happens after it happens.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“Intellectual individualism and scientific eras emerged simultaneously in history and have remained inseparable ever since.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Drink water; put the money in your pocket, and leave the dry-bellyache in the punch-bowl.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility of finding out causal relationships by systematic experiment (Renaissance).”

Albert Einstein · Letter to J.S. Switzer, 1953 · Primary source

“Every scientific law, every scientific principle, every statement of the results of an observation is some kind of a summary which leaves out details.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“We’ve learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work.”

Richard Feynman · Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985 · Primary source

“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occured in experience.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Eat few suppers, and you’ll need few medicines.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its propositions are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“By honest I don’t mean that you only tell what’s true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“Biologists tell us that animal species which have adapted themselves too nicely to highly specialized environments are at a dead end and have no future in the evolutionary process.”

Arnold J. Toynbee · A Study of History, 1934-1961 · Primary source

“Observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“All our science lacks a human side.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“In science we must be interested in things, not in persons.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Albert Einstein · No reliable source

“Invert, always invert.”

Carl Jacobi · No reliable source

“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Albert Einstein · Letter to Carl Seelig, 1952 · Primary source

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

Albert Einstein · Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, 1920 · Primary source

“I think that to keep trying new solutions is the way to do everything.”

Richard Feynman · The Meaning of It All, 1998 · Primary source

“The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science.”

Albert Einstein · Ideas and Opinions , 1954 · Primary source

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.”

Albert Einstein · Autobiographical Notes, 1949 · Primary source

“Let me tell you the secret that led me to my success. My only strength is my tenacity.”

Louis Pasteur · Oeuvres de Pasteur, 1922 · Primary source

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

Richard Feynman · Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle, 1986 · Primary source

“I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.”

Richard Feynman · Horizon: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, 1981 · Primary source

“A problem thoroughly understood is half solved.”

Charlie Munger · Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting, 2020 · Primary source

“The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.”

Richard Feynman · The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 1961-1964 · Primary source

“I have no dress except the one I wear. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one [a wedding dress], please let it be practical and dark, so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”

Marie Curie · Madame Curie: A Biography, 1938 · Secondary source

“It was a reaction I learned from my father: have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look at what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, Is it reasonable?”

Richard Feynman · What Do You Care What Other People Think?, 1986 · Primary source

“I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.”

Winston Churchill · The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898 · Primary source

“Since then I never pay any attention to anything by experts. I calculate everything myself.”

Richard Feynman · Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 1985 · Primary source

“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“I’m afraid that’s the way it [reality] is. If there are twenty factors and they interact some, you’ll have to learn to handle it—because that’s the way the world is. But you won’t find it that hard if you go at it Darwin-like, step by step with curious persistence. You’ll be amazed at how good you can get.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Functionally oriented design of this kind has always been strongly influenced by technological development, and will continue to be so in the future. The Braun pocket radios that we designed at the end of the 1950s would not have been possible without the new transistor technology at the time. Transistors were not only far smaller than valves, they also required much less power. That meant that for the first time it was possible to make a radio receiver that you could literally put in your pocket.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“If you see smoke, there must be fire.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Compensation, 1841 · Primary source

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land.”

Helen Keller · Optimism, 1903 · Primary source

“He that never eats too much, will never be lazy.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.”

Leonardo da Vinci · The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, 1888 · Primary source

“Mankind invented a system to cope with the fact that we are so intrinsically lousy at manipulating numbers. It’s called the graph.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Hold your council before dinner; the full belly hates thinking as well as acting.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1849 · Primary source

“The life of Darwin demonstrates how a turtle may outrun a hare, aided by extreme objectivity, which helps the objective person end up like the only player without a blindfold in a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Peace of mind is the most important prerequisite for creative work.”

Richard Feynman · A Short Talk about Richard Feynman, 2005 · Secondary source

“Many computer programs of the present day are of inordinate size—many thousands of pages of closely printed text. Mathematics has no tradition of dealing with expressions on this scale.”

Tony Hoare · The Mathematics of Programming, 1985 · Primary source

“I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

Explore the category

Science

8 subcategories · 16 authors · 22 works · 141 themes · 258 tags
Authors
Albert Einstein Theoretical physicistBenjamin Franklin American statesmanWinston Churchill British prime minister
Works
Autobiographical Notes Albert Einstein · 1949Ideas and Opinions Albert Einstein · 1954A Study of History Arnold J. Toynbee · 1934-1961
Themes
Intellectual honestyDiscovery over recognitionIntrinsic reward
Tags
EvidenceObservationNatureCuriosity
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