Modern Science Quotes

• The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

  Isaac Asimov

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  "Betting On a Bass That Belts Them Out; Singing Fish Becomes Season’s Unlikely Hit" by Darragh Johnson, The Washington Post, July 30, 2000.

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• A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Religion, Stressed

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71, Ballantine Books

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• However far modern science and techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson; nothing is impossible.

  Lewis Mumford

  Positive, Science, Technology

  "Technics and Civilization". Book by Lewis Mumford. Chapter 8, section 13, 1934.

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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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• The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

  Walter Lippmann

  Stars, Lying, Moving

  Walter Lippmann (1960). “A Preface To Morals”, p.127, Transaction Publishers

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Learning, Humility

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference in 1987. "Do Science and the Bible Conflict?" Book by Judson Poling, p. 30, 2003.

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• Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Math, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and solitude”, p.79, Harvard University Press

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• What art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern; the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men, the useful has succeeded to the beautiful.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Beautiful, Art, Men

  Benjamin Disraeli (1863). “Coningsby, Or, The New Generation”, p.113

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• Innovation and renewal are required to keep a laboratory on the frontiers of science.

  Burton Richter

  Innovation, Renewal, Laboratory

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• In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

  Galileo Galilei

  Truth, Inspiration, Independent

  "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men". Book by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365, 1859.

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• We all have faith in something: usually a mixture of some personal beliefs with modern science. I am not like that. Mostly I just believe in what personally has worked for me.

  James Altucher

  Believe, Mixtures, Have Faith

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• The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.

  Francis Galton

  Science, Development, Spirit

  Francis Galton (2015). “Memories of My Life”, p.211, Routledge

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• Western science is approaching a paradigm shift of unprecedented proportions, one that will change our concepts of reality and of human nature, bridge the gap between ancient wisdom and modern science, and reconcile the differences between Eastern spirituality and Western pragmatism.

  Stanislav Grof

  Reality, Bridges, Differences

  Stanislav Grof (1985). “Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy”, p.16, SUNY Press

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• In recent times, modern science has developed to give mankind, for the first time in the history of the human race, a way of securing a more abundant life which does not simply consist in taking away from someone else.

  Karl Taylor Compton

  Wisdom, Race, Giving

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• [I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Men, Civilization, Roots

  Jose Ortega Y Gasset (1960). “the Revolt of the Masses”

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• If the oncoming mutation to interstellar immortality is screwed up by the politicians, it will be because those of us who see the opportunities in modern science are not adroit enough to outmaneuver the forces of inertia, stupidity and greed. Well, if we're not intelligent enough to overcome such obstacles, then we don't deserve to carry off the mutation at this stage of evolution.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Intelligent, Opportunity, Stupidity

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

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• The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian... It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind.

  Freeman Dyson

  Christian, Europe, Ideas

  "The Scientist As Rebel". Book by Freeman Dyson, 2006.

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• The age-long history of thinking on gravitation, too, was erased from the collective consciousness, and that force somehow became the serendipitous child of Newton's genius. The new attitude is well illustrated by the anecdote of the apple, a legend spread by Voltaire, one of the most active and vehement erasers of the past. ... The need to build the myth of an ex nihilo creation of modern science gave rise to much impassioned rhetoric.

  Lucio Russo

  Children, Attitude, Past

  "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn". Book by Lucio Russo, 2004.

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• This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Lying, Keys, Ideas

  "The Character of Physical Law". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1965.

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• The assumption that the laws of nature are eternal is a vestige of the Christian belief system that informed the early postulates of modern science in the seventeenth century. Perhaps the laws of nature have actually evolved along with nature itself, and perhaps they are still evolving. Or perhaps they are not laws at all, but more like habits.

  Rupert Sheldrake

  Christian, Law, Belief

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• Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.

  Stephen Hawking

  Birth, Modern, Responsible

  Stephen Hawking (2009). “A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes”, p.155, Random House

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• On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.

  Theodor Adorno

  Way, Causes, Modern

  Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (2002). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.3, Stanford University Press

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• Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism, No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.

  John Ruskin

  Flower, Men, Giving

  John Ruskin (1918). “Selections and Essays”, Scholarly Press

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• Modern science, then, so far from being an enemy of romance, is seen on every hand to be its sympathetic and resourceful friend, its swift and irresistible helper in its serious need, and an indulgent minister to its lighter fancies.

  Richard Le Gallienne

  Hands, Romance, Enemy

  Richard Le Gallienne (1915). “Vanishing Roads, and Other Essays”

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• Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation.

  Frederick Soddy

  Ignorance, Science, Men

  Frederick Soddy's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1922.

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