Activity Quotes (8)
Activity is the only road to knowledge.
'Maxims for Revolutionists', in Man and Superman (1905), 230.
See also: | Knowledge (330)
Every human activity, good or bad, except mathematics, must come to an end.
Quoted as a favorite saying of Paul Erdös, by Béla Bollobás, 'The Life and Work of Paul Erdos', in Shiing-Shen Chern and Friedrich Hirzebruch (eds.) Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2000), Vol. 1, 292.
Furious activity is no substitute for analytical thought.
Quoted in New Scientist (1972), 55, 429.
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
In Michael Fripp, Speaking of Science: Notable Quotes on Science, Engineering, and the Environment‎ (2000), 203. Widely seen, but without further biographical information or source citation. Webmaster has not yet found a print source prior to 2000. Please contact Webmaster if you have more details. (For a similar quote in 1972, see Alastair Pilkington.)
In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. And in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it is to that one or two that we must look for light and guidance.
'The Progress of Science'. Collected essays (1898), Vol. 1, 57.
It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts. But until this has occurred, words do not count.
In Science and the Modern World (1925), 4.
See also: | Control (11) | Count (4) | Destroy (7) | Instinct (13) | Man (112) | Matter (61) | Occur (2) | Settle (2) | Ultimately (2) | Word (31)
There are various causes for the generation of force: a tensed spring, an air current, a falling mass of water, fire burning under a boiler, a metal that dissolves in an acid—one and the same effect can be produced by means of all these various causes. But in the animal body we recognise only one cause as the ultimate cause of all generation of force, and that is the reciprocal interaction exerted on one another by the constituents of the food and the oxygen of the air. The only known and ultimate cause of the vital activity in the animal as well as in the plant is a chemical process.
'Der Lebensprocess im Thiere und die Atmosphare', Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie (1841), 41, 215-7. Trans. Kenneth L. Caneva, Robert Mo.yer and the Conservation of Energy (1993), 78.
See also: | Acid (9) | Air (25) | Animal (57) | Cause (49) | Chemical (4) | Dissolve (2) | Effect (15) | Fire (18) | Food (36) | Force (14) | Metal (6) | Oxygen (13) | Plant (38) | Process (15) | Reaction (23) | Spring (2) | Steam (2) | Water (35) | Wind (11)
Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. I can write up to 18 hours a day. Typing 90 words a minute, I've done better than 50 pages a day. Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up—well, maybe once.
In Joseph Barbato, Writing for a Good Cause (2000), 151. Attribution uncertain. If you know an original print citation, please contact Webmaster.
See also: | Concentration (3) | Finger (3) | Interfere (3) | Look (3) | Love (29) | Office (2) | Thinking (56) | Word (31) | Writing (4)
