Science Quotes - Page 124

The law of diminishing returns means that even the most beneficial prinicple will become harmful if carried far enough.

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and repossession, and suffer his reason and feelings to determine for themselves; and that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of man, and generously enlarge his view beyond the present day.

A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man who plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric.

In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.

I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.

Problems in human engineering will receive during the coming years the same genius and attention which the nineteenth century gave to the more material forms of engineering. We have laid good foundations for industrial prosperity, now we want to assure the happiness and growth of the workers through vocational education, vocational guidance, and wisely managed employment departments. A great field for industrial experimentation and statemanship is opening up.

The modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art.

Engineering is the professional and systematic application of science to the efficient utilization of natural resources to produce wealth.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.

Science and religion will meet and shake hands.

Gates is the ultimate programming machine. He believes everything can be defined, examined, reduced to essentials, and rearranged into a logical sequence that will achieve a particular goal.

When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.

Rational argument can be defeated by refusing to argue rationally.

Our job in physics is to see things simply, to understand a great many complicated phenomena in a unified way, in terms of a few simple principles.

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

I am almost inclined to coin a word and call the appearance fluorescence, from fluor-spar, as the analogous term opalescence is derived from the name of a mineral.

The villagers seldom leave the village; many scientists have limited and poorly cultivated minds apart from their specialty.

Some cures are worse than the dangers they combat.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

Conscience gets expensive, doesn't it?

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.

Any man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.