Lord Kelvin Quotes

Quotes about:

• I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.

  Lord Kelvin

  Math, Science, Numbers

  Popular Lectures and Addresses "Electrical Units of Measurement" (1889).

  165 Copy quote

• If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Measurement, Measure For Measure, Can Not

  148 Copy quote

• There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Discovery, Measurement

  "Is Scientific Genius Extinct?" by Ross Pomeroy, bigthink.com.

  138 Copy quote

• If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Long, Atheism

  105 Copy quote

• Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

  Lord Kelvin

  Silly, Creativity, Science

  95 Copy quote

• Can you measure it? Can you express it in figures? Can you make a model of it? If not, your theory is apt to be based more upon imagination than upon knowledge.

  Lord Kelvin

  Imagination, Figures, Theory

  79 Copy quote

• When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.

  Lord Kelvin

  Discovery, Faces, Problem

  71 Copy quote

• Radio has no future." "X-rays are clearly a hoax". "The aeroplane is scientifically impossible.

  Lord Kelvin

  Technology, Rays, Radio

  69 Copy quote

• In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Physics, Stamp Collecting

  69 Copy quote

• When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Math, Science, Numbers

  Popular Lectures and Addresses "Electrical Units of Measurement" (1889).

  62 Copy quote

• To measure is to know.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knows

  58 Copy quote

• Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and fancy women.

  Lord Kelvin

  Horse, Race, Ironic

  54 Copy quote

• Christianity without the cross is nothing. The cross was the fitting close of a life of rejection, scorn and defeat. But in no true sense have these things ceased or changed. Jesus is still He whom man despiseth, and the rejected of men. The world has never admired Jesus, for moral courage is yet needed in every one of its high places by him who would "confess" Christ. The "offense" of the cross, therefore, has led men in all ages to endeavor to be rid of it, and to deny that it is the power of God in the world.

  Lord Kelvin

  Jesus, Men, Rejection

  58 Copy quote

• If you cannot measure it, then it is not science.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Ifs

  39 Copy quote

• If we can't express what we know in the form of numbers, we really don't know much about it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Numbers, Form, Knows

  11 Copy quote

• To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.

  Lord Kelvin

  Essentials, Primaries

  "Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 1846-1899" by George F. Fitzgerald, 1899.

  1 Copy quote

• Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.

  Lord Kelvin

  Hard Work, Science, Discovery

  37 Copy quote

• The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knowledge, Science, Soul

  Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883) in "The Life of Lord Kelvin" by Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1910.

  49 Copy quote

• The fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.

  Lord Kelvin

  Jobs, Doe, Debt

  16 Copy quote

• I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Atheism, Doe

  2 Copy quote

• The more thoroughly I conduct scientific research, the more I believe that science excludes atheism.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Atheism, Research

  28 Copy quote

• Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.

  Lord Kelvin

  Strong, Lying, Intelligent

  9 Copy quote

• We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power-in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Influence, Force

  26 Copy quote

• Let nobody be afraid of true freedom of thought. Let us be free in thought and criticism; but, with freedom, we are bound to come to the conclusion that science is not antagonistic to religion, but a help to it.

  Lord Kelvin

  Freedom, Criticism, Helping

  4 Copy quote

• Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

  Lord Kelvin

  Common Sense, Imagine, Mathematics

  "Life of Lord Kelvin". Book by Silvanus Phillips Thompson, 1910.

  12 Copy quote

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