Scientific Truth Quotes - Page 2

• Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

  William James

  Creativity, Mean, Science

  William James (2012). “Psychology: The Briefer Course”, p.195, Courier Corporation

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• Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.

  Howard Aiken

  Business, Science, Office Work

  "A Computer Science Reader : Selections from Abacus" by Eric A. Weiss, (p. 404), 1988.

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• The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature... It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect.

  Lewis Thomas

  Truth, Ignorance, Science

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Truth, Lying, Science

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, Ch. 14, 1897.

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• In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.

  Hugh Walpole

  Truth, Lying, Failure

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• All great truths begin as blasphemies.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Religious, Atheist, Truth

  Annajanska (1919)

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• Every great scientific truth goes through three states: first, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it.

  Louis Agassiz

  Truth, People, Three

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• Scientific truth is marvelous, but moral truth is divine and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise.

  Horace Mann

  Truth, Science, Air

  Horace Mann (1850). “A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary”, p.38

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• The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Positive, Knowledge

  "János : The Story of a Doctor" by János Plesch, translated by Edward FitzGerald, 1947.

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• The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Truth, Science, Discovery

  Robert M. Pirsig (2009). “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values”, p.6, Harper Collins

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Science, Theoretical Physics

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference, 1987.

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• A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

  James D. Watson

  Stupid, Science, Numbers

  James D. Watson (2011). “The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• The farther the experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize.

  Irene Joliot-Curie

  Science, Theory, Nobel

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• Science is the search for truth.

  Linus Pauling

  Science, Rejection, Skepticism

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  Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

  Frank Zappa

  Positive, Inspiring, Science

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• I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Science, Opportunity, Thinking

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• Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Air

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Science, Men

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• Experience alone can decide on truth.

  Albert Einstein

  Truth, Lying, Science

  Albert Einstein (1954). “Ideas and Opinions: Based on Mein Weltbild”

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• Biologists can be just as sensitive to heresy as theologians.

  H. G. Wells

  Science, Sensitive, Theologian

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• When the human race has once acquired a superstition, nothing short of death is ever likely to remove it.

  Mark Twain

  Race, Superstitions, Conservatism

  Mark Twain (1960). “The autobiography of Mark Twain: including chapters now published for the first time”

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• The greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Pain, Science, Ideas

  Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.3, Beacon Press

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• ...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

  William James

  Science, Abuse, Usual

  William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.22, 谷月社

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• The universe is wider than our views of it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Views, Space

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.185, Simon and Schuster

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• New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

  John Locke

  Business, Philosophy, War

  An Essay Concerning Human Understanding "Dedicatory Epistle" (1690)

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