Physical Science Quotes

• Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

  Blaise Pascal

  Time, Ignorance, Knowledge

  c.1654-1662 Pense es, no.23.

  80 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without renouncing the support of physics, it is possible for the physiology of the senses, not only to pursue its own course of development, but also to afford to physical science itself powerful assistance.

  Ernst Mach

  Powerful, Support, Development

  Ernst Mach (1897). “Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Taught Us, Abnormal, Deities

  2 Copy quote

• I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.

  Sally Ride

  Math, Favorite Subject, Astronomy

  18 Copy quote

• The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.

  Albert A. Michelson

  Discovery, Law, Important

  17 Copy quote

• The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science, as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

  Irving Babbitt

  Humanity, Needs, Today

  12 Copy quote

• But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

  David Brin

  Honest, Biology, Theme

  12 Copy quote

• Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and conformed. They are no exceptions to the rule that God always geometrizes. Their problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student of physical science.

  D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

  Flower, Math, Law

  36 Copy quote

• You know, there was a time, just before I started to study physical science, when astronomers thought that systems such as we have here in the solar system required a rare triple collision of stars

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Stars, Study, Astronomers

  12 Copy quote

• I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.

  Alan Shepard

  Math, Science, Thinking

  12 Copy quote

• One aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Science, Giving, Achievement

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential fact of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex worldwide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write.

  H. G. Wells

  Writing, Thinking, Average

  H. G. Wells (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of H. G. Wells (Illustrated)”, p.8611, Delphi Classics

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even mistaken hypotheses and theories are of use in leading to discoveries. This remark is true in all the sciences. The alchemists founded chemistry by pursuing chimerical problems and theories which are false. In physical science, which is more advanced than biology, we might still cite men of science who make great discoveries by relying on false theories.

  Claude Bernard

  Mistake, Science, Men

  "An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine".

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it.

  Albert Einstein

  Human Life, Humans, Axioms

  0 Copy quote

• Science does not know its debt to imagination.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Imagination, Doe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume VIII: Letters and Social Aims”, p.5, Harvard University Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world is devoted to physical science, because it believes theses discoveries will increase its capacity of luxury and self-indulgence. But the pursuit of science only leads to the insoluble.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Believe, Science, Discovery

  Benjamin Disraeli (1875). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales”, p.70

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only about seventy years ago was chemistry, like a grain of seed from a ripe fruit, separated from the other physical sciences. With Black, Cavendish and Priestley, its new era began. Medicine, pharmacy, and the useful arts, had prepared the soil upon which this seed was to germinate and to flourish.

  Justus von Liebig

  Art, Science, Years

  Justus von Liebig (1859). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in its relation to Physiology, Dietetics, Agriculture, Commerce and Political Economy: Edited by John Blyth”, p.5

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Neither physical science nor psychology can ever 'explain' human consciousness. To me then, human consciousness lies outside science, and it is here that I seek the relationship between God and man.

  Nevill Francis Mott

  God, Lying, Science

  4 Copy quote

• If you suppress laboratories, physical science will be stricken with barrenness and death.

  Louis Pasteur

  Laboratory, Ifs

  Some Reflections on Science in France Pt 1

  0 Copy quote

  Show source

• A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Mind, Purpose

  Bertrand Russell, Alasdair Urquhart, Albert C. Lewis (1994). “Foundations of Logic, 1903-05”, p.420, Psychology Press

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think we're all fascinated and a little mystified by how the brain works. One of the most mysterious of the physical sciences is neurological science.

  Alexis Denisof

  Thinking, Brain, Littles

  "Angel's Alexis Denisof goes post-apocalyptic in a new web series". Interview with Todd VanDerWerff, www.avclub.com. August 7, 2012.

  2 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have this extraordinary curiosity about all subjects of the natural and human world and the interaction between the physical sciences and the social sciences.

  Ian Hacking

  Curiosity, World, Hacking

  4 Copy quote

• John Marks Templeton has achieved exemplary success in both business and philanthropy. For Looking Forward he has assembled a diverse and remarkable group of experts in their fields-including the environment, medicine, the physical sciences, religion, the family, and international relations-and contributed two stellar pieces as well. Together these essays dispel fashionable pessimism and show how the world can progress-and is progressing-toward a better future.

  Rupert Murdoch

  Medicine, Two, Together

  0 Copy quote

• The establishment of Christianity . . . arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for over fifteen hundred years.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Years, Religion, Development

  Andrew Dickson White (1930). “History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom”, p.266, Library of Alexandria

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.

  Frances Wright

  Science, Superstitions, Way

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures”, p.66

  3 Copy quote

  Show source