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Quotes by Scientist
"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."
14
"Once again we have misleading climate change pronouncements being based on data errors, data errors detected by non-UN, non-IPCC, non-peer-reviewed external observers. This is exactly what happens when you base your arguments on 'consensus science' and not scientific fact."
14
"When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself."
14
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
14
"Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason."
14
"We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster."
14
"If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."
14
"It's your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion."
14
"All evil is good become cancerous."
14
"It is much more worthwhile to implement only one bright idea than collecting a thousand of them."
14
"We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives."
14
"Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."
14
"I'm forty-nine, not fifteen, and I've made my peace with myself. Had I been handsome and stupid when I was fifteen, or twenty-one, as, at that time in life, I wished I had been, I would undoubtedly now no longer be handsome--but I'd still be stupid. So, in the long run, I've won out."
14
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
14
"Russell commented that the development of such gifted individuals (referring to polymaths) required a childhood period in which there was little or no pressure for conformity, a time in which the child could develop and pursue his or her own interests no matter how unusual or bizarre."
14
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
14
"MacLean has shown that the R-complex plays an important role in aggressive behavior, territoriality, ritual and the establishment of social hierarchies. Despite occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of modern human bureaucratic and political behavior."
14
"Creativity is contagious. Pass it on."
14
"It is certainly true that all beliefs and all myths are worthy of a respectful hearing. It is not true that all folk beliefs are equally valid - if we're talking not about an internal mindset, but about understanding of the external reality."
14
"I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy. If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago."
14
"In addition to Ameslan, chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates are being taught a variety of other gestural languages. And it is just this transition from tongue to hand that has permitted humans to regain the ability-lost, according to Josephus, since Eden-to communicate with the animals."
14
"The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions."
13
"Somewhere on the world was the Emperor's palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, rainbowed with flowers."
13
"Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, "I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition?"
13
"If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?"
13
"One may sleep as long as one prefers, but one should know that each hour of excess sleep is an hour lost for learning."
13
"Knowledge can be acquired by education, reading, communicating and observing, but also simply by living."
13
"Life is to be entered upon with courage."
13
"Your dream is the prayer the Universe makes to you, because in its fulfilment it grows together with you."
13
"I've tried to solve problems to the best of my knowledge. Many times I was successful, but sometimes I also failed. And now I finally understand " that's life."
13
"Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God."
13
"There is no better way to improve yourself than an exchange of ideaswith peers."
13
"The questions are scientific, but the UN answers are political. The global warming debate is hardly about science."
13
"Or consider a story in the Jewish Talmud left out of the Book of Genesis. (It is in doubtful accord with the account of the apple, the Tree of Knowledge, the Fall, and the expulsion from Eden.) In The Garden, God tells Eve and Adam that He has intentionally left the Universe unfinished. It is the responsibility of humans, over countless generations, to participate with God in a "glorious" experiment - the "completing of the Creation." The burden of such a responsibility is heavy, especially on so weak and imperfect a species as ours, one with so unhappy a history. Nothing remotely like "completion" can be attempted without vastly more knowledge than we have today. But, perhaps, if our very existence is at stake, we will find ourselves able to rise to this supreme challenge."
13
"I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'."
13
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