Science quotes
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"The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap"
"But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances."
"The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them."
"It is clear, then, that the earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward return to the point from which they started, even if they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at the centre."
"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face."
"As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, at turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as earth to centre."
"It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off."
"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
"Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration."
"Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day?"
"Bacon first taught the world the true method of the study of nature, and rescued science from that barbarism in which the followers of Aristotle, by a too servile imitation of their master."
"No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere."
"I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex."
"Life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress."
"Education is like a diamond with many facets: It includes the basic mastery of numbers and letters that give us access to the treasury of human knowledge, accumulated and refined through the ages; it includes technical and vocational training as well as instruction in science, higher mathematics, and humane letters."
"Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do."
"Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind... The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise."
"On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.)"
"We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet... I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, 'I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it.' The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question."
