"Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be
an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are
trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one
particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their
careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except
for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and
an ability to turn my hand to new things... Since I essentially knew nothing,
I had an almost completely free choice..."
-- Francis Crick (discoverer of DNA).
"For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is
the supreme Court of Appeal... Every item of physical knowledge must therefore
be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out
a specified observational procedure."
-- Sir Arthur Eddington
It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand
it. You see my physics students
don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody
does."
-- Richard Feynman, in QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.
"The yeoman work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the
experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest."
-- Michio Kaku
"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and
is the torch which illuminates the world."
-- Louis Pasteur
"I console myself with the thought that although they may be smarter
and may be deeper thinkers than I am, I have broader interests than they
have."
-- Linus Pauling
"It is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental science
the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)... despise utility.
But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making of
discoveries, rather than before."
-- John Polanyi
"The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by
side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have
different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand
in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise
each other."
-- Neil Postman, on the "conflict" between science and religion
"Basic research, to which we owe everything, is relatively very cheap
when compared with other outlays of modern society. The other day I made
a rough calculation which led me to the conclusion that if one were to add
up all the money ever spent by man on basic research, one would find it
to be just about equal to the money spent by the Pentagon this past year."
-- Albert Szent-Györgyi
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the
merits of science that it equips the future for its duties."
-- Alfred North Whitehead
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw
"How often have I said to you that when you heve eliminated the impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
-- Sherlock Holmes in "The Sign of Four" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1890
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities.
The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit
to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
-- Albert Einstein
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public
relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
-- Richard P. Feynman
"I didn't think; I experimented."
-- Wilhelm Roentgen
"Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. "
-- Mike Adams
"The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science
requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship."
-- Robert Heinlein
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
-- Ernest Rutherford
"This example illustrates the differences in the effects which may be
produced by research in pure or applied science. A research on the lines
of applied science would doubtless have led to improvement and development
of the older methods -- the research in pure science has given us an entirely
new and much more powerful method. In fact, research in applied science
leads to reforms, research in pure science leads to revolutions, and revolutions,
whether political or industrial, are exceedingly profitable things if you
are on the winning side."
-- J. J. Thomson
"Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical
utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain."
-- H.L.F. von Helmholtz
"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
-- Niels Bohr
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
-- Albert Einstein
"If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that
man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be
deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it
or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation
which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind
in the race for space."
-- President John F. Kennedy, in what future historians (if there are any)
will point to as one of the most important speeches in humanity's history
given at Rice University, 1962
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,
not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because
that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and
skills."
-- JFK again, speaking to a key point. Emphasis mine.