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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index G > Category: Guide

Guide Quotes (12 quotes)

If history is any guide at all, it seems to me to suggest that there is a final theory. In this century we have seen a convergence of the arrows of explanation, like the convergence of meridians toward the North Pole.
— Steven Weinberg
In Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientist's Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature (1992), 232.
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (7)  |  Arrow (6)  |  Convergence (2)  |  Explanation (75)  |  Final (10)  |  History (135)  |  Meridian (2)  |  Theory (319)

Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
— Isaac Asimov
In The Roving Mind (1983), 26.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (116)  |  Bible (36)  |  Bitter (5)  |  Childish (3)  |  Discovery (318)  |  Feeble (2)  |  Home (14)  |  Ignorance (94)  |  Leader (4)  |  Library (20)  |  School (30)  |  Science And Religion (129)  |  Uneducated (2)

In order that the relations between science and the age may be what they ought to be, the world at large must be made to feel that science is, in the fullest sense, a ministry of good to all, not the private possession and luxury of a few, that it is the best expression of human intelligence and not the abracadabra of a school, that it is a guiding light and not a dazzling fog.
— William Jay Youmans
'Hindrances to Scientific Progress', The Popular Science Monthly (Nov 1890), 38, 121.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (42)  |  Best (29)  |  Dazzling (5)  |  Expression (35)  |  Few (7)  |  Fog (4)  |  Good (63)  |  Human (131)  |  Intelligence (64)  |  Light (99)  |  Luxury (3)  |  Possession (20)  |  Privacy (4)  |  Relation (30)  |  School (30)  |  Science (754)  |  World (165)

Oh! That the Chemist's magic art
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!...
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source;
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.

— Samuel Rogers
&$039;On a Tear', in Samuel Rogers et al., The Poetical Works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montombery, Lamb, and Kirke White (1836), 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (39)  |  Law (243)  |  Law Of Gravitation (10)  |  Magic (20)  |  Mould (7)  |  Orbit (31)  |  Planet (69)  |  Sphere (10)  |  Tear (11)  |  Treasure (11)  |  Trickle (2)

One of my guiding principles is don’t do anything that other people are doing. Always do something a little different if you can. The concept is that if you do it a little differently there is a greater potential for reward than if you the same thing that other people are doing. I think that this kind of goal for one’s work, having obviously the maximum risk, would have the maximum reward no matter what the field may be.
— Seymour R. Cray
In transcript of a video history interview with Seymour Cray by David K. Allison at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, (9 May 1995), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Concept (29)  |  Difference (117)  |  Doing (22)  |  Field (52)  |  Goal (27)  |  Greater (12)  |  Potential (8)  |  Principle (87)  |  Reward (15)  |  Risk (8)  |  Same (8)  |  Work (152)

Science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide—rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires—we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.
— Lawrence M. Krauss
In op-ed, 'A Universe Without Purpose', Los Angeles Times (1 Apr 2012).
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (7)  |  A Priori (5)  |  Absolute (28)  |  Atom (157)  |  Classical (6)  |  Dependence (17)  |  Desire (37)  |  Albert Einstein (148)  |  Falling (2)  |  Fear (47)  |  Hope (33)  |  Impossibility (29)  |  Logic (118)  |  Measurement (102)  |  Nature (475)  |  Observer (4)  |  Pillar (2)  |  Prejudice (25)  |  Progress (180)  |  Quantum Mechanics (12)  |  Realization (20)  |  Science (754)  |  Space And Time (4)  |  Teaching (51)  |  Thinking (140)  |  Unthinkable (2)  |  Wayside (2)

The advancement of science is slow; it is effected only by virtue of hard work and perseverance. And when a result is attained, should we not in recognition connect it with the efforts of those who have preceded us, who have struggled and suffered in advance? Is it not truly a duty to recall the difficulties which they vanquished, the thoughts which guided them; and how men of different nations, ideas, positions, and characters, moved solely by the love of science, have bequeathed to us the unsolved problem? Should not the last comer recall the researches of his predecessors while adding in his turn his contribution of intelligence and of labor? Here is an intellectual collaboration consecrated entirely to the search for truth, and which continues from century to century.
[Respecting how the work of prior researchers had enabled his isolation of fluorine.]
— Henri Moissan
Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1897). In Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to July 1897 (1898), 262.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (21)  |  Attainment (17)  |  Century (31)  |  Character (30)  |  Collaboration (8)  |  Consecration (2)  |  Continuation (10)  |  Contribution (20)  |  Difficulty (59)  |  Duty (21)  |  Effort (28)  |  Idea (180)  |  Intellect (89)  |  Intelligence (64)  |  Labour (21)  |  Love (57)  |  Nation (32)  |  Perseverance (10)  |  Position (17)  |  Predecessor (10)  |  Recognition (28)  |  Recollection (3)  |  Research (319)  |  Result (103)  |  Search (30)  |  Struggle (14)  |  Thought (143)  |  Truth (399)  |  Virtue (25)  |  Work (152)

The test of a theory is its ability to cope with all the relevant phenomena, not its a priori 'reasonableness'. The latter would have proved a poor guide in the development of science, which often makes progress by its encounter with the totally unexpected and initially extremely puzzling.
— John Charlton Polkinghorne
'From DAMTP [Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics] to Westcott House', Cambridge Review (1981), 103, 61.
Science quotes on:  |  A Priori (5)  |  Ability (29)  |  Coping (3)  |  Development (97)  |  Encounter (6)  |  Extreme (13)  |  Latter (2)  |  Phenomenon (100)  |  Poor (11)  |  Progress (180)  |  Proof (120)  |  Puzzle (12)  |  Reasonableness (3)  |  Relevance (7)  |  Science (754)  |  Test (37)  |  Theory (319)  |  Total (7)  |  Unexpected (9)

The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery ... As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.
— Charles Babbage
Passages From the Life of a Philosopher (1864), 136-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (70)  |  Analytical Engine (3)  |  Computer (47)  |  Course (19)  |  Development (97)  |  Execution (6)  |  Future (84)  |  Machine (47)  |  Necessity (67)  |  Operation (47)  |  Science (754)

To be worth of the name, an experimenter must be at once theorist and practitioner. While he must completely master the art of establishing experimental facts, which are the materials of science, he must also clearly understand the scientific principles which guide his reasoning through the varied experimental study of natural phenomena. We cannot separate these two things: head and hand. An able hand, without a head to direct it, is a blind tool; the head is powerless without its executive hand.
— Claude Bernard
In Claude Bernard and Henry Copley Greene (trans.), An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (1927, 1957), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (63)  |  Blind (7)  |  Directing (3)  |  Establish (8)  |  Executive (2)  |  Experiment (346)  |  Experimenter (9)  |  Fact (277)  |  Hand (18)  |  Head (15)  |  Mastery (6)  |  Material (47)  |  Name (46)  |  Natural (27)  |  Phenomenon (100)  |  Powerless (3)  |  Practitioner (3)  |  Principle (87)  |  Reasoning (48)  |  Science (754)  |  Separation (23)  |  Study (117)  |  Theorist (5)  |  Tool (24)  |  Understanding (195)  |  Various (6)

What is a scientist?… We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself.
— Maria Montessori
The Montessori Method, trans. Anne E. George,(1964), 8.
Science quotes on:  |  Experiment (346)  |  Fascination (12)  |  Life (379)  |  Mystery (64)  |  Passion (20)  |  Pursuit (27)  |  Scientist (186)  |  Secret (33)  |  Self (6)  |  Thought (143)  |  Truth (399)  |  Veil (5)

[About the great synthesis of atomic physics in the 1920s:] It was a heroic time. It was not the doing of any one man; it involved the collaboration of scores of scientists from many different lands. But from the first to last the deeply creative, subtle and critical spirit of Niels Bohr guided, restrained, deepened and finally transmuted the enterprise.
— J. Robert Oppenheimer
Quoted in Bill Becker, 'Pioneer of the Atom', New York Times Sunday Magazine (20 Oct 1957), 54.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Physics (4)  |  Niels Bohr (35)  |  Collaboration (8)  |  Creativity (37)  |  Deep (15)  |  Difference (117)  |  Enterprise (4)  |  Land (14)  |  Scientist (186)  |  Spirit (42)  |  Subtlety (5)  |  Transmutation (10)



Carl Sagan Thumbnail At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan

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