Francis Crick Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain. Our entire view of the universe depends on it.

  Francis Crick

  Science, Men, Views

  108 Copy quote

• Avoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.

  Francis Crick

  Thinking, Temptation, Serious

  54 Copy quote

• Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.

  Francis Crick

  Science, Origin Of Life, Mind

  Francis Crick (2008). “What Mad Pursuit”, p.104, Hachette UK

  23 Copy quote

• The dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he'll fight and die for it.

  Francis Crick

  Fighting, Men, Ideas

  56 Copy quote

• You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.

  Francis Crick

  Neurons, Packs

  Francis Crick (1995). “Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

  13 Copy quote

• A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.

  Francis Crick

  Criticism, Height, Scientist

  52 Copy quote

• A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong

  Francis Crick

  Facts, Should, Theory

  47 Copy quote

• Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself.

  Francis Crick

  Life, Science, Understanding

  1988 What Mad Pursuit, ch.5.

  9 Copy quote

• The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.

  Francis Crick

  Facts, Movement, Chemistry

  "Of Molecules and Men". Book by Francis Crick, p. 10, 1966.

  39 Copy quote

• Evolution is cleverer than you are.

  Francis Crick

  Science, Graphic Design, Evolution

  8 Copy quote

• An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

  Francis Crick

  Men, Origin Of Life, Miracle

  "Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature". Book by Francis Crick, 1981.

  20 Copy quote

• Chance is the only source of true novelty.

  Francis Crick

  Life, Science, Novelty

  Life Itself (p. 82)

  19 Copy quote

• My own prejudices are exactly the opposite of the functionalists': "If you want to understand function, study structure".

  Francis Crick

  Want, Structure And Function, Study

  "What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery". Book by Francis Crick, 1988.

  34 Copy quote

• The major credit I think Jim and I deserve ... is for selecting the right problem and sticking to it. It's true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold. Both of us had decided, quite independently of each other, that the central problem in molecular biology was the chemical structure of the gene. ... We could not see what the answer was, but we considered it so important that we were determined to think about it long and hard, from any relevant point of view.

  Francis Crick

  Science, Thinking, Discovery

  16 Copy quote

• Consciousness is somehow a by-product of the simultaneous, high frequency firing of neurons in different parts of the brain. It's the meshing of these frequencies that generates consciousness, just as tones from individual instruments produce the rich, complex, & seamless sounds of a symphony orchestra

  Francis Crick

  Inspiration, Symphony, Brain

  23 Copy quote

• It is essential to understand our brains in some detail if we are to assess correctly our place in this vast and complicated universe we see all around us.

  Francis Crick

  Brain, Essentials, Details

  62 Copy quote

• Christianity may be OK between consenting adults in private but should not be taught to young children.

  Francis Crick

  Children, Christian Education, Religion

  36 Copy quote

• A busy life is a wasted life.

  Francis Crick

  Life, Science, Busy

  Francis Crick (2008). “What Mad Pursuit”, p.108, Hachette UK

  17 Copy quote

• One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

  Francis Crick

  Country, Believe, Years

  31 Copy quote

• It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clinches into place.

  Francis Crick

  Ideas, Feelings, Mind

  10 Copy quote

• Free will is located in or near the anterior cingulate sulcus.

  Francis Crick

  Free Will

  Francis Crick (1994). “The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul”

  20 Copy quote

• Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.

  Francis Crick

  Choices, Free Choice

  36 Copy quote

• When you start in science, you are brainwashed into believing how careful you must be, and how difficult it is to discover things. There's something that might be called the 'graduate student syndrome'; graduate students hardly believe they can make a discovery.

  Francis Crick

  Believe, Science, Discovery

  13 Copy quote

• To produce a really good biological theory one must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them, realizing that they are likely to be overlaid by other, secondary mechanisms. What seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there.

  Francis Crick

  Nature, Lying, Science

  16 Copy quote

• In the fullness of time, educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.

  Francis Crick

  Believe, Independent, People

  29 Copy quote

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