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Quotes by Scientist
"There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters to sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. That openness to new ideas, combined with the most rigorous, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, sifts the wheat from the chaff. It makes no difference how smart, august, or beloved you are. You must prove your case in the face of determined, expert criticism. Diversity and debate are valued. Opinions are encouraged to contend"substantively and in depth."
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"Living honestly is a prerequisite for a clear conscience."
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"You should be aware of fake friends because it is the hardest to be aware of."
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"Even evolutionary explanations of the traditional division of labor by sex do not imply that it is unchangeable, "natural in the sense of good, or something that should be forced on individual women or men who don't want it."
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"I don't expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible."
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"Wherever you work, work hard and educate yourself continuously. You must never forget social welfare, ethics and honesty. However, there is no guarantee for your career progression. Therefore, don't expect that only the best people will be promoted."
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"When digging ceases to be a great game and becomes, as in Egypt, merely business, it will be a bad thing."
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"Those expressions are omitted which can not with propriety be read aloud in the family."
12
"Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible."
11
"All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end."
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"A deep consideration of the essence of knowledge should reveal how knowledge corresponds to the truth."
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"Let's see if I got this right," she would say to herself. "I've taken an inert gas that's in the air, made it into a liquid, put some impurities in a ruby, attached a magnet, and detected the fires of creation."
11
"When all is said and done, the invention of writing must be reckoned not only as a brilliant innovation but as a surpassing good for humanity. And assuming that we survive long enough to use their inventions wisely, I believe the same will be said of the modern Thoths and Prometheuses who are today devisingcomputers and programs at the edge of machine intelligence."
11
"The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher."
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"Well, sir to say that when the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth, is to make the assumption, usually justified, that everything that is to be considered has indeed been considered. Let us suppose we have considered ten factors. Nine are clearly impossible. Is the tenth, however improbable, therefore true? What if there were an eleventh factor, and a twelfth, & a thirteenth..."
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"Truth doesn't need to be defended. Truth just is."
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"Your heart doesn't care about being easy. Your heart only cares about what's true for you."
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"Nothing represents a man better than his ideas."
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"For what could any Entity, conscious of eternal existence, want " but an end?"
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"Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up-the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains-were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time. We are, as I like to say, starstuff."
11
"The dynamic nature of knowledge is reflected in human progress and technological achievements."
11
"Those mothers with hereditary large pelvises were able to bear large-brained babies who because of their superior intelligence were able to compete successfully in adulthood with the smaller-brained offspring of mothers with smaller pelvises."
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"There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises."
11
"The Rights Revolutions too have given us ideals that educated people today take for granted but that are virtually unprecedented in human history, such as that people of all races and creeds have equal rights, that women should be free from all forms of coercion, that children should never, ever be spanked, that students should be protected from bullying, and that there's nothing wrong with being gay. I don't find it at all implausible that these are gifts, in part, of a refined and widening application of reason."
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"Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people."
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"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."
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"For an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope."
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"Lift up your eyes from your books, from your past, from your hurts and look upon all people with love, because when you look into another's eyes and see innocence, you find it in yourself."
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"The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural."
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"Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship."
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"Sixty years is too brief a compass for man's imagination. The incomplete joys of this world can never satisfy his heart."
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"Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them to despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they display for it, is generally proportioned to its importance, or to the length of time during which they have enjoyed it. The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious; the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse."
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"So, in a Civil Service where smooth and sociable performance was more useful than an individualistic competence, Enderby went up the scale quickly, and was at the Commissioner level when Baley himself was nothing more than a C-5."
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"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
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