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Quotes by Scientist
"In fact, we just surpassed our first 1 million simultaneous users online."
84
"What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space."
83
"LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing."
83
"The only animals I'm not comfortable with are parrots, but I'm learning as I go. I'm getting better and better at 'em. I really am."
83
"From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."
83
"Johnny Carson started the jokes about me and Marlin in his monologues."
82
"My mother used to wheel me about the campus when we lived in that neighborhood and, as she recounted years later, she would tell me that I would go to McGill."
82
"Scientists often have a naive faith that if only they could discover enough facts about a problem, these facts would somehow arrange themselves in a compelling and true solution."
82
"An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version."
82
"We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction."
82
"I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
82
"A new concept of god: "something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow, Mars, the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us."
82
"Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work."
82
"Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess."
81
"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."
81
"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."
80
"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."
80
"The glimpses of human strength and frailty that a physician sees are with me still."
79
"Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones."
79
"The paradox of anti-Semitism is that it is invariably up to the Jews to explain away the charges. The anti-Semite simply has to make them."
79
"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more."
79
"Our technological infrastructure alienates us from each other. No need to form a workplace community, everybody there will be out in a year or two, and so will you, looking for a better place."
79
"No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days."
78
"The first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine."
78
"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor."
78
"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
78
"One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human."
77
"I dropped out of high school four times between the ages of 12 to 17."
76
"I believe sustainable use is the greatest propaganda in wildlife conservation at the moment."
75
"One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it."
75
"Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness."
75
"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."
75
"In early church polemics, Jews are deemed no longer worthy of their own Scriptures because they have failed to accept Christ as the Messiah."
75
"There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works."
75
"The fact that I was fortunate enough to escape contagion, in spite of frequent, sometimes daily contacts with the disease, was because I soon guessed how it spread."
74
"A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God."
74
"The real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development."
74
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