George Sarton Quotes - Page 2

My gratitude to them [my first teachers] grows as I myself grow older.

On the basis of my historical experience, I fully believe that mathematics of the 25th century will be as different from that of today as the latter is from that of the 16th century.

The ability of nonintelligent people to understand the most complicated mechanisms and to use them has always been to me a cause of astonishment: their inability to understand simple questions is even more astonishing. The general acceptance of simple ideas is difficult and rare, and yet it is only when simple, fundamental, ideas have been accepted that further progress becomes possible on a higher level.

The chief requisite for the making of a good chicken pie is chicken; no amount of culinary legerdemain can make up for the lack of chicken. In the same way, the chief requisite for the history of science is intimate scientific knowledge; no amount of philosophic legerdemain can make up for its absence.

Hellenic science is a victory of rationalism, which appears greater, not smaller, when one is made to realize that it had been won in spite of the irrational beliefs of the Greek people; all in all, it was a triumph of reason in the face of unreason. Some knowledge of Greek superstitions is needed not only for a proper appreciation of that triumph but also for the justification of occasional failures, such as the many Platonic aberrations.

The intensity of a national culture should be represented by... the general education level and... the exceptional merit of a small elite of pioneers.

A deed happens in a definite place at a definite time, but if it be sufficiently great and pregnant, its virtue radiates everywhere in time and space.

Some forty years of experience in my field as a scholar and as a teacher have given me great confidence mixed with greater humility.

I am obliged to deal with hundreds of men and to make them live without killing the reader.

The Hellenistic world was international to a degree, polyglot and inspired by many religious faiths. ...the Greek ideals were pagan and the Hellenistic age witnessed their death struggle against Asiatic and Egyptian mysteries , on the one side, and against Judaism , on the other.