Biographies Quotes - Page 10

• What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Knows, Immense

  "Budget of Paradoxes". Book by Augustus De Morgan, 1866.

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• A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Law, Numbers

  Charles Darwin (2016). “Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution”, p.63, VM eBooks

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• At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Brother, Science, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

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• But nothing ever put 'Hoppy' in the shade. No one could fail to recognize in the little figure... the authentic gold of intellectual inspiration, the Fundator et Primus Abbas of biochemistry in England.

  Joseph Needham

  Inspiration, Science, Intellectual

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• Cuvier had even in his address & manner the character of a superior Man, much general power & eloquence in conversation & great variety of information on scientific as well as popular subjects. I should say of him that he is the most distinguished man of talents I have ever known on the continent: but I doubt if He be entitled to the appellation of a Man of Genius.

  Humphry Davy

  Character, Science, Men

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• Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'être. Virtually all of our aunts and uncles had Ph.D.s in science or engineering, and it was taken for granted that the next generation of Chu's were to follow the family tradition. When the dust had settled, my two brothers and four cousins collected three MDs, four Ph.D.s and a law degree. I could manage only a single advanced degree.

  Steven Chu

  Brother, Cousin, Uncles

  Steven Chu - Biographical, www.nobelprize.org. 1997.

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• For three days now this angel, almost too heavenly for earth has been my fiancée ... Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant colours. Upon his engagement to Johanne Osthof of Brunswick; they married 9 Oct 1805.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Spring, Angel, Science

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• Formerly Milton's Paradise Lost had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Paradise, Voyages

  Charles Darwin (2010). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: “Erasmus Darwin” by Ernest Krause, with a Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin; “The Autobiography of Charles Darwin” Edited by Nora Barlow; and Consolidated Index”, p.118, NYU Press

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• I have the vagary of taking a lively interest in mathematical subjects only where I may anticipate ingenious association of ideas and results recommending themselves by elegance or generality.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Science, Ideas, May

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• I possess every good quality, but the one that distinguishes me above all is modesty.

  Charles Richet

  Science, Quality, Modesty

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• I remember my father had a sermon he used to preach when we were in Florida, in which he gave a reference to the Southern Cross-about the stars, the colors, in the Southern Cross, which thrilled me very much. I must have been around 5 years old. ... Now, it turns out that the Southern Cross itself does have one red star, together with three blue ones.

  William Wilson Morgan

  Stars, Father, Science

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• I was at my best at a little past forty, when I was a professor at Oxford.

  G. H. Hardy

  Science, Past, Oxford

  G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.148, Cambridge University Press

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• I was introduced to Mr. Davy, who has rooms adjoining mine (in the Royal Institution); he is a very agreeable and intelligent young man, and we have interesting conversation in an evening; the principal failing in his character as a philosopher is that he does not smoke.

  John Dalton

  Character, Science, Intelligent

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• I wish I had my beta-blockers handy.

  James Black

  Science, Wish, Beta

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• I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911)

  Ernest Rutherford

  Clever, Reading, Science

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• If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels.

  Jonathan Swift

  Science, Gulliver, World

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• In describing the honourable mission I charged him with, M. Pernety informed me that he made my name known to you. This leads me to confess that I am not as completely unknown to you as you might believe, but that fearing the ridicule attached to a female scientist, I have previously taken the name of M. LeBlanc in communicating to you those notes that, no doubt, do not deserve the indulgence with which you have responded.

  Sophie Germain

  Believe, Taken, Science

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• In the old days, they killed the messenger who brought the bad news... a Cassandra is never popular in her time.

  Alice Stewart

  Science, News, Messengers

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• It has become, in my view, a bit too trendy to regard the acceptance of death as something tantamount to intrinsic dignity. Of course I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to love and a time to die - and when my skein runs out I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations, however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy - and I find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Running, Science, Acceptance

  Stephen Jay Gould (2010). “Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History”, p.478, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this. Upon seeing a distorted image of his face, reflected on the inside cylindrical surface of the bore while inside an MRI (magnetic-resonance-imaging) machine-a device made possible by his early physical researches on nuclear magnetic resonance (1938).

  Isidor Isaac Rabi

  Science, Eerie, Nuclear

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• John looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter.

  John Arbuthnot

  Science, Pairs, Cheeks

  John Arbuthnot (2006). “History of John Bull”, p.83, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Like thousands of other boys, I had a little chemical laboratory in our cellar and think that some of our friends thought me a bit crazy.

  Linus Pauling

  Crazy, Science, Boys

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• Maybe I was young and 'cute' (after all, I was only twenty then), but I've learned over the years that when you put white lab coats on chemists, they all look alike!

  Gertrude B. Elion

  Cute, Science, Years

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• My lectures were highly esteemed, but my operations less thought of, so that I am of opinion that my operations rather kept down my practice, than increased it.

  Astley Cooper

  Science, Practice, Lectures

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• My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin', was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!'

  Thomas Huxley

  Stupid, Science, Reflection

  "On the Reception of the 'Origin of Species' " (1888)

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