Knowledge Quotes - Page 32

• The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Views, Training

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.409, Psychology Press

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• The Fox knows many things-the hedgehog one big one.

  Archilochus

  Science, Hedgehogs, Foxes

  Fragment 103 See Isaiah Berlin 1

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• The growth of our knowledge is the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called 'natural selection'; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence, a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.

  Karl Popper

  Struggle, Science, Growth

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• 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

  Science, Soul, Desire

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

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• The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.

  Thomas Paine

  Philosophy, Science, Men

  Thomas Paine (2003). “The Age of Reason”, p.118, Book Tree

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• The most disgraceful cause of the scarcity [of remedies] is that even those who know them do not want to point them out, as if they were going to lose what they pass on to others.

  Pliny the Elder

  Science, Selfishness, Scarcity

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• The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance-these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, Men, Community

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2014). “Atom and Void: Essays on Science and Community”, p.73, Princeton University Press

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• The partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch not in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Tree, Branches

  Francis Bacon (2012). “The Advancement of Learning”, p.90, Modern Library

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• The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind.

  Robert Andrews Millikan

  Science, Hands, Law

  Robert Andrews Millikan (1924). “The electron, its isolation and measurement ant the determination of some of its properties”

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• The Reader may here observe the Force of Numbers, which can be successfully applied, even to those things, which one would imagine are subject to no Rules. There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduc'd to a Mathematical Reasoning, and when they cannot, it's a sign our Knowledge of them is very small and confus'd; and where a mathematical reasoning can be had, it's as great folly to make use of any other, as to grope for a thing in the dark when you have a Candle standing by you.

  John Arbuthnot

  Success, Dark, Science

  Of the Laws of Chance Preface

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• The real value of science is in the getting, and those who have tasted the pleasure of discovery alone know what science is. A problem solved is dead. A world without problems to be solved would be devoid of science.

  Frederick Soddy

  Real, Science, Discovery

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

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• The regularity with which we conclude that further advances in a particular field are impossible seems equaled only by the regularity with which events prove that we are of too limited vision. And it always seems to be those who have the fullest opportunity to know who are the most limited in view. What, then, is the trouble? I think that one answer should be: we do not realize sufficiently that the unknown is absolutely infinite, and that new knowledge is always being produced.

  Willis R. Whitney

  Science, Opportunity, Thinking

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• The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable posession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?

  Thomas Huxley

  Real, Believe, Science

  'Collected Essays' vol. 3 (1895) 'On Elementary Instruction in Physiology' (written 1877)

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• The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Science, Mind

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.29, 谷月社

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• The scientist knows very well that he is approaching ultimate truth only in an asymptotic curve and is barred from ever reaching it; but at the same time he is proudly aware of being indeed able to determine whether a statement is a nearer or a less near approach to the truth.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Pride, Science, Curves

  Konrad Lorenz (2002). “On Aggression”, p.279, Psychology Press

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• The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. ... They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Science, Imagination, Discipline

  Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (2015). “The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. II: The New Millennium Edition: Mainly Electromagnetism and Matter”, p.678, Basic Books

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• The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account.

  William Stanley Jevons

  Science, Observation, Turns

  William Stanley Jevons (1874). “The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method”, p.1

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• The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge.

  Louis Agassiz

  Believe, Science, Origin Of Life

  "Evolution and Permanence of Type". Atlantic Monthly, January 1874.

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• Their vain presumption of knowing all can take beginning solely from their never having known anything; for if one has but once experienced the perfect knowledge of one thing, and truly tasted what it is to know, he shall perceive that of infinite other conclusions he understands not so much as one.

  Galileo Galilei

  Science, Knowing, Perfect

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• Theory is the essence of facts. Without theory scientific knowledge would be only worthy of the madhouse.

  Oliver Heaviside

  Science, Essence, Facts

  Electromagnetic Theory Chapter I, Introduction (p. 12)

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• There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, Reality, Differences

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (1947). “Physics in the Contemporary World”

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• There was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered. No familiar conceptions can be woven around the electron; it belongs to the waiting list.

  Arthur Eddington

  Time, Science, Waiting

  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1933). “The nature of the physical world”

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• To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sédillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body.

  Louis Pasteur

  Science, Agents, Body

  Hippocrates, Ambroise Paré, William Harvey, Edward Jenner, Oliver Wendell Holmes (1910). “Scientific Papers; Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology”

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• To inquisitive minds like yours and mine the reflection that the quantity of human knowledge bears no proportion to the quantity of human ignorance must be in one view rather pleasing, viz., that though we are to live forever we may be continually amused and delighted with learning something new.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Learning, Ignorance, Science

  Benjamin Franklin, Albert H. Smyth (1905). “Writings, Collected and Ed. with a Life and Introd”

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• To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.

  Isaac Asimov

  Science, Perfect, Greek

  Isaac Asimov (1968). “The Intelligent Man's Guide to the Physical Sciences”

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