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).

  174 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Measurement, Measure For Measure, Can Not

  155 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.

  144 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Believe, Long, Atheism

  117 Copy quote

• Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

  Lord Kelvin

  Silly, Creativity, Science

  99 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Discovery, Faces, Problem

  76 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

  82 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Technology, Rays, Radio

  74 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Physics, Stamp Collecting

  81 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).

  66 Copy quote

• To measure is to know.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knows

  64 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

  58 Copy quote

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

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Ifs

  43 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

  62 Copy quote

• In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. 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; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.

  Lord Kelvin

  Numbers, Quality, Principles

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

  10 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

  15 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

  9 Copy quote

• There is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all.

  Lord Kelvin

  Science, Teach

  8 Copy quote

• All of science can be divided into physics and stamp-collecting.

  Lord Kelvin

  Physics, Stamp Collecting, Stamps

  27 Copy quote

• Ether is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminferous ether.

  Lord Kelvin

  Reality, Substance, Dynamics

  8 Copy quote

• You know only insofar as you can measure.

  Lord Kelvin

  Knows

  6 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.

  16 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

  32 Copy quote

• When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory.

  Lord Kelvin

  10 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

  40 Copy quote

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