Freeman Dyson Quotes

Quotes about:

• The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

  Freeman Dyson

  Children, School, Views

  36 Copy quote

• Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our understanding.

  Freeman Dyson

  Science, Reality, Understanding

  7 Copy quote

• In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

  Freeman Dyson

  Fighting, Causes, Ends

  Freeman J. Dyson (2016). “Dear Professor Dyson: Twenty Years of Correspondence Between Freeman Dyson and Undergraduate Students on Science, Technology, Society and Life”, p.129, World Scientific

  17 Copy quote

• Nothing is boring if you look at carefully.

  Freeman Dyson

  Looks, Boring, Ifs

  "Why We Run: A Natural History". Book by Bernd Heinrich, May 7, 2002.

  8 Copy quote

• In the history of science it has often happened that the majority was wrong and refused to listen to a minority that later turned out to be right.

  Freeman Dyson

  Majority, Minorities, Global Warming

  Freeman Dyson (2015). “Dreams of Earth and Sky”, p.94, New York Review of Books

  11 Copy quote

• Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science.

  Freeman Dyson

  Hysteria, Global Warming, Driven

  21 Copy quote

• When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in muddled, incomplete and confusing form. ... For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope.

  Freeman Dyson

  Crazy, Innovation, Confusing

  Freeman Dyson (2013). “FROM EROS TO GAIA”, p.138, Pantheon

  5 Copy quote

• Science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

  Freeman Dyson

  Mystery, Exploration, Continuing

  "How We Know". Freeman Dyson's review of James Gleick's book "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" (2011), www.nybooks.com. March 10, 2011.

  12 Copy quote

• You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's mind?

  Freeman Dyson

  Wise, Thinking, Fog

  56 Copy quote

• The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes. If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing.

  Freeman Dyson

  Air, Wind, Atmosphere

  10 Copy quote

• Do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant.

  Freeman Dyson

  Ignorant, Done, Imagine

  6 Copy quote

• As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.

  Freeman Dyson

  Together, Looks, Benefits

  Freeman Dyson (2013). “FROM EROS TO GAIA”, p.166, Pantheon

  27 Copy quote

• Almost everything about the universe is astounding. I think the most amazing thing is how gifted we are - we are only monkeys who came down from the trees just recently. We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Thinking, Tree

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  4 Copy quote

• The history of mathematics is a history of horrendously difficult
  problems being solved by young people too ignorant to know that they were
  impossible.

  Freeman Dyson

  People, Ignorant, Impossible

  5 Copy quote

• Boiled down to one sentence, my message is the unboundedness of life and the unboundedness of human destiny.

  Freeman Dyson

  Inspirational, Life, Destiny

  5 Copy quote

• Committees do harm merely by existing.

  Freeman Dyson

  Harm, Committees

  4 Copy quote

• Technology without morality is barbarous; morality without technology is impotent.

  Freeman Dyson

  Technology, Morality

  5 Copy quote

• Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute.

  Freeman Dyson

  Religious, Arrogance, Dogma

  Freeman J Dyson (2015). “Birds and Frogs: Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson, 1990–2014”, p.192, World Scientific Publishing Company

  25 Copy quote

• Atoms are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe is also weird, with its laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it passes beyond the scale of our comprehension.

  Freeman Dyson

  Law, Choices, Mind

  "Progress In Religion". Freeman Dyson's Acceptance Speech for the Templeton Prize at the Washington National Cathedral, www.edge.org. May 16, 2000.

  6 Copy quote

• CO2 is so beneficial...it would be crazy to try to reduce it

  Freeman Dyson

  Crazy, Trying, Would Be

  14 Copy quote

• The media always tries to make everything into a disaster, but it's mostly rubbish.

  Freeman Dyson

  Media, Trying, Rubbish

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

  10 Copy quote

• The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm.

  Freeman Dyson

  Ideas, Important, World

  Salon Interview, September 29, 2007.

  22 Copy quote

• We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been the cold periods rather than the warm periods.

  Freeman Dyson

  Thinking, People, Facts

  13 Copy quote

• Everything in my life was luck. The key to having an interesting life is to always say "yes" to anything crazy.

  Freeman Dyson

  Crazy, Interesting, Luck

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

  10 Copy quote

• To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

  Freeman Dyson

  People, Violin, Mathematics

  "Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe". Interview with Elena Holodny, www.businessinsider.com. September 9, 2016.

  11 Copy quote

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