John B. S. Haldane Quotes

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

Money can buy a fine dog but it is kindness that makes him wag his tail.

Reality is the cage of those who lack imagination.

Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public.

It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.

Would I lay down my life to save my brother? No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.

This is my prediction for the future: Whatever hasn't happened will happen, and no one will be safe from it.

I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: (i) this is worthless nonsense; (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; (iv) I always said so.

An ounce of algebra is worth a ton of verbal argument.

The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals.

Man armed with science is like a baby with a box of matches.

The conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which spiritual values count for everything.

Haldane was engaged in discussion with an eminent theologian. "What inference," asked the latter, "might one draw about the nature of God from a study of his works?" Haldane replied: "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

There can be no truce between science and religion.

[Children] are taught that it is a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science.

I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don't know why I do things.

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

Capitalism, though it may not always give the scientific worker a living wage, will always protect him, as being one of the geese which produce golden eggs for its table.

The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides.

My final word, before I'm done, Is "Cancer can be rather fun"- Provided one confronts the tumour with a sufficient sense of humour. I know that cancer often kills, But so do cars and sleeping pills; And it can hurt till one sweats, So can bad teeth and unpaid debts. A spot of laughter, I am sure, Often accelerates one's cure; So let us patients do our bit To help the surgeons make us fit.

We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve.

I will give up my belief in evolution if someone finds a fossil rabbit in the Precambrian.

Christianity is haunted by the theory of a God with a craving for bloody sacrifices.

I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.

Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.