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Quotes by Scientist
"You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility."
15
"While ritual, emotion and reasoning are all significant aspects of human nature, the most nearly unique human characteristic is the ability to associate abstractly and to reason. Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts--a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the "humanities." Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human. Mathematics is as much a "humanity" as poetry."
15
"A bumper sticker from the 1970s read, "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."
15
"How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
15
"The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!"
15
"As far as the laws of Mathematics refer to reality they are not certain and as far as they are certain they do not refer to reality."
15
"Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away."
15
"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth."
15
"The doctrine of a soul that outlives the body is anything but righteous, because it necessarily devalues the lives we live on this earth."
15
"What could be more fundamental to our sense of meaning and purpose than a conception of whether the strivings of the human race over long stretches of time have left us better or worse off? How, in particular, are we to make sense of modernity-of the erosion of family, tribe, tradition, and religion by the forces of individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason, and science?"
15
"The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax."
15
"The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."
15
"It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely."
15
"I was very pleased with your kind letter. Until now I never dreamed of being something like a hero. But since you've given me the nomination I feel that I am one."
15
"La prueba de ausencia no es prueba de ausencia."
15
"...two chimpanzees were observed maltreating a chicken: One would extend some food to the fowl, encouraging it to approach; whereupon the other would thrust at it with a piece of wire it had concealed behind its back. The chicken would retreat but soon allow itself to approach once again--and be beaten once again. Here is a fine combination of behavior sometimes thought to be uniquely human: cooperation, planning a future course of action, deception and cruelty."
15
"The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds - to say nothing of stars or galaxies - humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal."
15
"You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it."
15
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms."
15
"It may be that there are kernels of truth in a few of these doctrines, but their widespread acceptancebetokens a lack of intellectual rigor, an absence of skepticism, a need to replace experiments by desires."
15
"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."
15
"A planet might deteriorate even if human beings existed upon it, if the society were itself abnormal and did not understand the importance of preserving the environment.""Surely," said Pelorat, "such a society would quickly be destroyed. I don't think it would be possible for human beings to fail to understand the importance of retaining the very factors that are keeping them alive."Bliss said, "I don't have your pleasant faith in human reason, Pel. It seems to me to be quite conceivable that when a planetary society consists of Isolates, local and even individual concerns might easily by allowed to overcome planetary concerns."
14
"However, in part for reasons of organizationalconvenience, modern societies are structured as if all humans had the same sleep requirements; and in many parts of the world there is a satisfying sense of moral rectitude in rising early. The amount of sleep required for buffer dumping would then depend on how much we have both thought and experienced since the last sleep period."
14
"All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault."
14
"A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity."
14
"Past glories are poor feeding."
14
"People will always tell you what they think you should or should not do. But your life is only between you and God. If you have doubts whether what you're doing is right or wrong, before you make any decision, look up and ask God. You will always know the answer."
14
"Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
14
"The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate."
14
"We are gaining the knowledge science is giving us that. Now we need wisdom as well."
14
"Nothing is more important than a great idea that influenced thedevelopment of civilization."
14
"I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books."
14
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
14
"Some people have a handful of ideas, but not enough time to realize them."
14
"Science and spirituality are not opposed entities that try to claim ownership of the universal truth but rather different layers of awareness about this world."
14
"A god who is capable of sending intelligible signals to millions of people simultaneously, and of receiving messages from all of them simultaneously, cannot be, whatever else he might be, simple. Such Bandwidth!"
14
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