Quotes: Scholar. Science.

The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quotation that follows.

Scholar
He was a scholar who studied without any purpose.
Scholar 352 …a scholar, throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or personal ambition. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches.

The scholar’s life is a peaceful life.
Scholar 132 …the fine quiet of the scholar which is nearest of all things to heavenly peace. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

Characteristics of a scholar.
Scholar 63 ...the self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual hostility in which he seems to stand to society, and especially educated society. Emerson, The American Scholar.

Scholars soon learn that it is not what they study but what they do with what they study that counts.
Scholar 110 He [the scholar] will learn, that it is not much matter what he reads [but] what he does. Emerson, Literary Ethics.

In a world of despondent people, the scholar brings hope to the world.
Scholar 116 Whilst the multitude of men degrade each other, and give currency to desponding doctrines, the scholar must be a bringer of hope, and must reinforce man against himself. Emerson, Method of Nature.

Science
A medical man interested only in his experiments with people, not about the people themselves.
Science 124 [“Rappaccini’s Daughter”]: Giovanni’s mentor, Professor Baglioni, warns him about Rappaccini, describing his colleague as a man who ‘cares infinitely more for science than for mankind...his patients...[are] interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment.’ Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

I have given a record of what one scientist thought as he pursued his research.
Science 310 “I have given the record of what one man has thought as he pursued research and pressed his hand against the confining walls of [the] scientific method.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

We can’t even grasp the complexities of a single cell.
Science 149 German biologist von Bertalanffy: “To grasp in detail the physico-chemical organization of the simplest cell is far beyond our capacity.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Two types of scientists: one still sees the wonder and mystery in life.
Science 190 [Two types of practitioners in science]: One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail’s eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

The second type of scientist is the analyzer who takes all of the mystery and wonder out of life.
Science 190 The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Einstein believed in the intelligibility of the world that is the object of scientific research.
Science 191 Einstein: “A conviction akin to religious feeling of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a high order.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Science is interested in the coherence of nature.
Science 229 Alfred North Whitehead: “Science is concerned not with the causes but the coherence of nature.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Scientific knowledge is verifiable and cumulative.
Science 273 From a single point his [the scientist’s] discovery is verifiable by other men who may then, on the basis of corresponding data, accept the innovation and elaborate upon it in the cumulative fashion which is one of the great triumphs of science. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

The effects of the study of science on the scientist.
Science 291 “The special value of science,” a perceptive philosopher once wrote, “lies not in what it makes of the world, but in what it makes of the knower.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

If we journey into space, we should do so with hopes of expanding the human spirit.
Science 298 I remain oppressed by the thought that the venture into space is meaningless unless it coincides with a certain interior expansion. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

The ingenuity of science and the inability of man to get along with his fellows makes this a particularly dangerous time for the human race.
Science 576 JFK: “Because of the ingenuity of science and man’s own inability to control his relationships with one another…we happen to live in the most dangerous time in the history of the human race.” Sorenson, Kennedy

Science now defines the world mathematically, not by sense perception.
Science 8 In accepting a mathematical description of nature, physicists have been forced to abandon the ordinary world of experience, the world of sense perception. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.

Man’s perceptions of the world are limited by his visual sense.
Science 11 Man’s perceptions of the universe in which he dwells are thus restricted by the limitations of his visual sense. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.

When man observes his world, he changes that world because of his observation.
Science 25 Whenever he [man] attempts to penetrate and spy on the “real” objective world, he changes and distorts its workings by the very process of his observation. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.

Nothing can move faster than light.
Science 47 …nothing can ever move faster than light, no matter what forces are applied. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Matter and energy are the same thing, but in different states.
Science 54 In other words matter is energy and energy is matter, and the distinction is simply one of temporary state. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

In July 1945 man demonstrated the ability to change mass into energy and the atomic bomb.
Science 55 If matter sheds its mass and travels with the speed of light we call it radiation or energy; and conversely if energy congeals and takes on a different form we call it matter...since July 16,1945, man has been able to transform one into the other...on that night at Alamogordo, New Mexico, man for the first time transmuted a substantial quantity of matter into the light, heat, sound, and motion which we call energy. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

We can’t feel the motion of the earth.
Science 63 ...we can’t feel our motion through space; nor has any physical experiment ever proved that the earth actually is in motion. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

It’s not the magnet, but the magnet’s magnetic field that attracts pieces of iron.
Science 73 Today scientists no longer say that a magnet “attracts” a piece of iron by some kind of mysterious but instantaneous action-at-a-distance...say rather that the magnet creates a certain physical condition in the space around it, which they term a magnetic field; and that this magnetic field then acts upon the iron and makes it behave in a certain predictable fashion. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Like magnets, celestial objects create fields and determine the properties around them.
Science 74 Just as Maxwell and Faraday assumed that a magnet creates certain properties in surrounding space, so Einstein concluded that stars, moons and other celestial objects individually determine the properties of the space around them. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

We can’t physically visualize Einstein’s universe; it can only be described mathematically.
Science 86 Like most of the concepts of modern science, Einstein’s finite, spherical universe cannot be visualized...its properties can be described mathematically. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

A sunbeam traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second would take 200 billion terrestrial years to traverse the universe and return to its starting point.
Science 87 A sunbeam, setting out through space at the rate of 186,000 miles a second would, in this universe, describe a great cosmic circle and return to its source after little more than 200 billion terrestrial years. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Mathematical equations describe the fundamental phenomena beyond the range of vision; equations work, as the creation of the atomic bomb showed.
Science 25 …the equations of quantum physics define more accurately than any mechanical model the fundamental phenomena beyond the range of vision…[equations] work, as the calculations which hatched the atomic bomb spectacularly proved. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

The facts of the heat of the sun measured in centigrade.
Science 94 The temperature of the sun, which is an average star, ranges from 550 degrees centigrade at the surface up to 40,000,000 degrees in the interior. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Scientists try to construct theories that cover the greatest number of facts.
Science 104 A complete Unified Field Theory touches the “grand aim of all science,” which, as Einstein once defined it, is “to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.” Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Science tries to find the unity that underlies the immense variety of the natural world.
Science 105 The urge to consolidate premises, to unify concepts, to penetrate the variety and particularity of the manifest world to the undifferentiated unity that lies beyond is not only the leaven of science; it is the loftiest passion of the human intellect. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Man must worry that his attempt to discover changes what he is observing.
Science 107 In his descent into the microcosm [man] has encountered indeterminacy, duality, paradox--barriers that seem to admonish him he cannot pry too inquisitively into the heart of things without altering and vitiating the processes he seeks to observe. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Early Americans made discoveries because they were not limited by the rigid patterns of thought of their European counterparts.
Science 251 On a rare occasion, an American could discover something, even in physics, simply because he was less learned than his European colleagues [because] ignorance of the respectable paths of scientific thought might leave him freer to wander off whenever facts beckoned. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Franklin discovered the identity of lightning and electricity because his thinking was not locked into electrical machines, laboratory experiments and theoretical arguments.
Science 256 The identity of lightning and electricity had already been suspected by Europeans, but they had found no way to prove it; Franklin’s contribution was a simple device that, as he said, “might have occurred to any electrician,” but which somehow had not occurred to Europeans physicists preoccupied with their “electrical machines,” their laboratory experiments, and their theoretical arguments among themselves. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Problems of scientific research.
Science Cover …the boredom of tedious experiment, and the aggressive miscalculations resulting from wrong notions stubbornly held to or facts only half understood…hard competition between men and labs as well as theories…dull conferences to attend…. Watson, The Double Helix.

Science does not proceed logically as it is supposed to, but is affected by personalities and cultural traditions.
Science xi …science seldom proceeds in the straightforward logical manner imagined by outsiders…its steps forward (and sometimes backward) are often very human events in which personalities and cultural traditions play major roles. Watson, The Double Helix.

People in general are ignorant of how science actually works.
Science xii …there remains general ignorance about how science is “done.” Watson, The Double Helix.

An idea so simple had to be right.
Science 114 The idea was so simple that it had to be right. Watson, The Double Helix.

Such a beautiful model suggested that the structure had to exist.
Science 205 …telling each other that a structure this pretty just had to exist. Watson, The Double Helix.

Cures are the work of hundreds of researchers, each of whom makes a small contribution.
Science 11 Most cures are based on the work of hundreds of researchers, all of whom make minute contributions. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

Writing about our failures is as important as writing about our successes.
Science 55 Professor Theodor Billroth…was…the first with the courage to publish reports on his operations; since surgeons lost more cases than they saved, the reports were macabre reading…”failures must be acknowledged, at once and publicly, without glossing over our mistakes; an unsuccessful case is more important to know about than a dozen successful operations.” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

A scientist believes only what can be measured.
Science 225 He was a scientist…one [who] believed only what could be measured. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

Science replaced Divine authority with observation, experience and experiment.
Science 193 …the revolution that replaced Divine Authority by experience, experiment, and observation. Clark, Civilization.

We kill when we dissect or analyze.
Science 279 Wordsworth: We murder to dissect. Clark, Civilization.

With Einstein, science began to focus on science, not on human needs.
Science 344 But from the time of Einstein, Niels Bohr and the Cavendish Laboratory, science no longer existed to serve human needs, but in its own right. Clark, Civilization.

Alchemy became chemistry, astrology became astronomy and from fables of talking animals came zoology.
Science 105 Here and there, in universities and monasteries and hidden retreats, men ceased to dispute and began to search…alchemy was transmuted to chemistry; out of astrology, men groped their way…to astronomy; and out of the fables of speaking animals came the science of zoology. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

If we learn the laws of nature, we will be its master.
Science 120 F. Bacon: Let us learn the laws of nature, and we shall be her masters. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

The usefulness of alchemy was like people digging for gold but, while finding no gold, produce crops.
Science 123 F. Bacon: Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons he had left them gold buried somewhere in his vineyard; where they, by digging, found no gold, but by turning up the mold about the roots of the vines, procured a plentiful vintage...so the search and endeavors to make gold have brought many useful inventions and instructive experiments to light. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

The Greeks were always theorizing, not observing.
Science 128 F. Bacon: The great mistake of the Greek philosophers was that they spent so much time in theory, so little in observation. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

We must observe nature, not follow the dictates of authorities in books.
Science 133 F. Bacon: We must go to nature instead of to books, traditions and authorities. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

Philosophy should coordinate all the sciences for the benefit of human beings.
Science 353 Comte: Philosophy…was the coordination of all the sciences with a view to the improvement of human life…generalization of the result of all sciences. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

The experimental attitude promotes detailed analysis, specific inquiries and facts.
Science 527 Dewey: The experimental attitude...substitutes detailed analysis for wholesale assertions, specific inquiries for temperamental convictions, small facts for opinions whose size is in precise ratio to their vagueness. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, John Dewey.

The essence of science is the willingness to abandon an idea for a better one.
Science 166 The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one. Mencken, Minority Report.

Science rejects any experience that cannot be described in numbers.
Science 12 Ira Wolfert: Science rejects…experiences that cannot be described in numbers. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Modern science rests on the relativity and quantum theories, the one dealing with the universe at large and the other with the universe of the atom and smaller.
Science 240 W.L. Laurence: The two pillars on which modern science rests are the relativity and the quantum theories…[the] one [dealing] with the cosmic forces operating within the universe at large, while the other deals with the forces holding together the nuclei of the atoms of which the universe is constituted. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

The theory of relativity is the greatest synthesis of all time.
Science 241 Bertrand Russell on Einstein’s theory of relativity: …the greatest intellectual synthesis of all time. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

The greatest promise and threat of science is in contracting time through technology and expanding it through medicine.
Science 245 W.L. Laurence: The greatest promise, as well as the greatest threat, that…scientific achievements hold for [humanity] spring from the very fact that [man] has now gained for the first time a large measure of control…over the limitations of space and time…achieved, on the one hand, by contracting space, through the airplane, radio, television, and such, which enable him to crowd into any given time an infinity of experiences that would have taken several lifetimes in earlier generations, and, on the other hand, by stretching time through the lengthening of his life span as the result of new knowledge of fundamental life processes which is still snowballing. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

We have modified space and time and been modified by space and time and are now four-dimensional.
Science 246 W.L. Laurence: Having profoundly modified space and time, and become, in turn modified by them, we are gradually evolving from three-dimensional Euclidean beings into dwellers of the four-dimensional, non-Euclidean space-time universe of Dr. Einstein. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Science strives for unity and simplicity, but it seems to produce variety and complication.
Science 272 Babette Deutsch: Some years ago the mathematician, Henri Poincare, pointed out that science moves toward unity and simplicity: it seems to move toward variety and complication. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

50 years ago, inventions came from individual geniuses; today, most inventions are created by anonymous researchers.
Science 319 Rudolf Flesch on the changes in science and writing: Fifty years ago our inventions came from individual geniuses like Edison; today most great inventions are made by anonymous researchers, following a fixed procedure. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Science should produce the supplements and continuations of God’s creation.
Science 440 When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation. Emerson, Art.

Engineering and science will ultimately destroy humanity.
Science 473 Speer: Nothing can prevent unfettered engineering and science from completing the work of destroying human beings, which it has begun in so dreadful a way in this war. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

Science battles mistake.
Science 703 …but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Scientific discovery is based on intuition.
Science vii They [physicists] recognize that the crucial step on the way to scientific discovery is not rational, but intuitive. Foreword: Cooper. A Random Walk in Science.

The purpose of pure science is to extend knowledge, not to apply it.
Science 3 By research in pure science I mean research made without any idea of application to industrial matters but solely with the view of extending our knowledge of the laws of nature. J.J. Thompson. A Random Walk in Science.

No one today can comprehend the whole field of science.
Science 4 Today no human brain is capable of comprehending the whole of science. Feleki. A Random Walk in Science.

Inferring the temperature of Hell.
Science 106 The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed but it must be less than 444.6 degrees centigrade, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from a liquid to a gas. Anon. A Random Walk in Science.

Science is filling our homes with appliances that are smarter than we are.
Science 172 One humiliating thing about science is that it is gradually filling our homes with appliances smarter than we are. Anon. A Random Walk in Science.

Scientific fact sets off an explosion of conjecture.
Science 173 There is something fascinating about science: One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi. A Random Walk in Science.

Science has affected our method of reasoning.
Science 202 What [people] usually do not consider is the effect of science upon their way of reasoning. Adolph Baker. A Random Walk in Science.

The field of science is like an anthill.
Science 101 An active field of science is like an immense intellectual anthill; the individual almost vanishes into the mass of minds rumbling over each other, carrying information from place to place, passing it around at the speed of light. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Scientists are in a panic to grab the answer before anyone else does.
Science 101 To grab the answer, and grab it first, is for them [scientists] a more powerful drive than feeding or breeding, or protecting themselves against the elements. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

The typical science paper is a small piece in a large jig-saw.
Science 15 Ziman: A typical scientific paper has never pretended to be more than another little piece in a larger jigsaw--not significant in itself but as an element in a grander scheme. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Science is like termites building a termite nest.
Science 15 Ziman: this technique of soliciting many modest contributions in the store of human knowledge has been the secret of Western science since the seventeenth century, for it achieves a corporate, collective power that is far greater than any one individual can exert: With some alternation of terms, some toning down, [this] passage could describe the building of a termite nest. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Man stands between macrocosm and microcosm, and because the world was created by the word of God, its constituents are not available to us.
Science and God 109 Standing midway between macrocosm and microcosm, [Man] finds barriers on every side and can perhaps but marvel, as St. Paul did nineteen hundred years ago, that “the world was created by the word of God so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Will science and humor be able to keep in step?
Science and humor 4 It is decisive for the present and future of mankind whether humor and science can keep in step…. Felecki. A Random Walk in Science.

Much of science consists of metaphors for the reality beneath the surface of things.
Science and metaphor 106 And upon examination such concepts as gravitation, electromagnetism, energy, current, momentum, the atom, the neutron, all turn out to be theoretical substructures, inventions, metaphors which man’s intellect has contrived to help him picture the true, the objective reality he apprehends beneath the surface of things. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

A scientific view of the end of the world.
Science and the future 95 The sun is slowly but surely burning out, the stars are dying embers, and everywhere in the cosmos heat is turning to cold, matter is dissolving into radiation, and energy is being dissipated into empty space. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Science fiction is about what can be while fantasy is about what cannot be.
Science fiction and fantasy 297 Science fiction vs. fantasy: the distinction between what can be, as science fiction is often described, and what can’t be, as fantasy often is…. Silbersack, JW. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

The German Nazi scientist renounced international science and research and research for the sake of research. Sieg Heil!
Science scholars research 272 Historian Ulrich Kahrstedt in 1934: “We renounce international science, we renounce the international republic of scholars, we renounce research for the sake of research. Sieg Heil!” Bracher, The German Dictatorship

Science and poetry must be comprehended.
Science, poetry 221 Poetry is as necessary to comprehension as science. Henry Beston, The Outermost House.

There are scientists who are narrow-minded, dull and stupid.
Scientists 14 …a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid. Watson, The Double Helix.

The process of science is not reflected in the format of scientific articles.
Scientists xv Much of the misunderstanding of scientists and how they work is due to the standard format of articles in scientific journals. Introduction. A Random Walk in Science.

We know a lot more about flatworms than about the people who study flatworms.
Scientists xv We know considerably more about flatworms than we do about people who study flatworms. Introduction. A Random Walk in Science.