• Science
    Quotes
  • What's
    New
  • Science
    Stories
  • Chemistry
    Stories
  • Perpetual
    Motion
  • Newsletter
    Sign-up
  • Search
    search icon
  • Feedback
    email icon
  • Home
  • Text Menu
  • Science Store
  • News
  • Wall Calendar
  • Survey
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
TODAYINSCI ®

Find science on your birthday
TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
Follow @todayinsci
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index O > Category: Oil

Oil Quotes (16 quotes)

Between the frontiers of the three super—states Eurasia, Oceania, and Eastasia, and not permanently in possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hongkong. These territories contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the Middle East or Southern India or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hardworking coolies, expended by their conquerors like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control...
Thus George Orwell—in his only reference to the less-developed world.
I wish I could disagree with him. Orwell may have erred in not anticipating the withering of direct colonial controls within the 'quadrilateral' he speaks about; he may not quite have gauged the vehemence of urges to political self-assertion. Nor, dare I hope, was he right in the sombre picture of conscious and heartless exploitation he has painted. But he did not err in predicting persisting poverty and hunger and overcrowding in 1984 among the less privileged nations.
I would like to live to regret my words but twenty years from now, I am positive, the less-developed world will be as hungry, as relatively undeveloped, and as desperately poor, as today.
— Abdus Salam
'The Less-Developed World: How Can We be Optimists?' (1964). Reprinted in Ideals and Realities (1984), xv-xvi. Referencing a misquote from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four (1949), Ch. 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Coal (17)  |  Control (37)  |  Exploitation (2)  |  Labour (21)  |  Poverty (18)  |  Regret (8)  |  Territory (6)

At length being at Clapham where there is, on the common, a large pond which, I observed to be one day very rough with the wind, I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropt a little of it on the water. I saw it spread itself with surprising swiftness upon the surface; but the effect of smoothing the waves was not produced; for I had applied it first on the leeward side of the pond, where the waves were largest, and the wind drove my oil back upon the shore. I then went to the windward side, where they began to form; and there the oil, though not more than a tea-spoonful, produced an instant calm over a space several yards square, which spread amazingly, and extended itself gradually till it reached the leeside, making all that quarter of the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a looking-glass.
[Experiment to test an observation made at sea in 1757, when he had seen the wake of a ship smoothed, explained by the captain as presumably due to cooks emptying greasy water in to the sea through the scuppers.]
— Benjamin Franklin
Letter, extract in 'Of the still of Waves by Means of Oil The Gentleman's Magazine (1775), Vol. 45, 82.
Science quotes on:  |  Acre (2)  |  Calm (6)  |  Experiment (346)  |  Glass (17)  |  Pond (2)  |  Spread (6)  |  Still (3)  |  Surface (33)  |  Wave (28)  |  Wind (24)

Gas Lights - Without Oil, Tallow, Wicks or Smoke. It is not necessary to invite attention to the gas lights by which my salon of paintings is now illuminated; those who have seen the ring beset with gems of light are sufficiently disposed to spread their reputation; the purpose of this notice is merely to say that the Museum will be illuminated every evening until the public curiosity be gratified.
[Promoting the gas lights Peale installed to attract paying visitors to his museum of portraits and natural history exhibits.]
— Rembrandt Peale
First advertisement for Peale's Baltimore Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, American and Commercial Daily Advertiser (13 Jun 1816) (source)
Science quotes on:  |  Advertisement (5)  |  Curiosity (45)  |  Evening (8)  |  Gem (2)  |  Gratification (7)  |  Illumination (8)  |  Invitation (4)  |  Light (99)  |  Museum (12)  |  Necessity (67)  |  Painting (13)  |  Reputation (6)  |  Smoke (5)

Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities, and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.
— Robert Burton
In Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (78)  |  Destroy (9)  |  Diet (22)  |  Disease (158)  |  Fire (53)  |  Fountain (6)  |  Fuel (14)  |  Gluttony (5)  |  Health (85)  |  Infirmity (2)  |  Lamp (7)  |  Natural (27)  |  Source (26)

I do not think there should be a limit on the rig's liability, because they are sitting on top of unlimited amounts of oil, and thus, there could be an explosion occur that could do untold damage. ... The amount of damage that an offshore oil rig can do is infinite.
— John Chafee
Senate Floor Debate, 135 Cong. Rec. S9689-S9716 (3 Aug 1989). Reproduced in Russell V. Randle, Oil Pollution Deskbook (1991), 432.
Science quotes on:  |  Damage (7)  |  Explosion (9)  |  Infinite (31)  |  Liability (3)  |  Oil Spill (3)  |  Unlimited (4)

I had come to the conclusion, that the principal alimentary matters might be reduced to the three great classes, namely the saccharine, the oily and the albuminous.
— William Prout
'On the Ultimate Composition of Simple Alimentary Substances; with some Preliminary Remarks on the Analysis of Organised Bodies in General', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1827), 117, 357.
Science quotes on:  |  Albumen (2)  |  Conclusion (67)

Immense deposits of kimmeridge clay, containing the oil-bearing bands or seams, stretch across England from Dorsetshire to Lincolnshire. [An early political recognition of the native resource. The Geological Survey had identified the inflammable oil shale in reports since at least 1888.]
— Winston Churchill
On 17 Jul 1913. Quoted in Winston Churchill and Richard Langworth (ed.), Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008), 269. For earlier report of the kimmerage clay, see Memoirs of the Geological Survey: England and Wales: The Geology of the Country Around Lincoln (1888), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Energy (89)  |  England (14)

It is not always the most brilliant speculations nor the choice of the most exotic materials that is most profitable. I prefer Monsieur de Reaumur busy exterminating moths by means of an oily fleece; or increasing fowl production by making them hatch without the help of their mothers, than Monsieur Bemouilli absorbed in algebra, or Monsieur Leibniz calculating the various advantages and disadvantages of the possible worlds.
— Noel-Antoine Pluche
Spectacle, 1, 475. Quoted in Camille Limoges, 'Noel-Antoine Pluche', in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1974 ), Vol. 11, 43.
Science quotes on:  |  Advantage (20)  |  Brilliance (4)  |  Choice (36)  |  Disadvantage (4)  |  Extermination (5)  |  Fowl (2)  |  Help (10)  |  Increase (26)  |  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (24)  |  Material (47)  |  Moth (2)  |  Mother (23)  |  Possibility (59)  |  Production (59)  |  Profit (12)  |  Speculation (36)  |  World (165)

Research is industrial prospecting. The oil prospectors use every scientific means to find new paying wells. Oil is found by each one of a number of methods. My own group of men are prospecting in a different field, using every possible scientific means. We believe there are still things left to be discovered. We have only stumbled upon a few barrels of physical laws from the great pool of knowledge. Some day we are going to hit a gusher.
— Charles F. Kettering
'Industrial Prospecting', an address to the Founder Societies of Engineers (20 May 1935). In National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series of the National Research Council (1933), No. 107, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (116)  |  Discovery (318)  |  Industry (42)  |  Knowledge (593)  |  Law (243)  |  Pool (2)  |  Research (319)  |  Stumble (3)

See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps—often but old bottles and vials, though. ... He burns, too, the purest of oil. ... It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveler on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.
[Describing the whale oil lamps that provided copious illumination for the whalemen throughout their ship, which contrasts with the darkness endured by sailors on merchant ships.]
— Herman Melville
In Moby-Dick (1851, 1892), 401.
Science quotes on:  |  April (2)  |  Bottle (5)  |  Burning (12)  |  Butter (4)  |  Energy (89)  |  Freedom (36)  |  Freshness (3)  |  Game (25)  |  Grass (5)  |  Hunting (3)  |  Illumination (8)  |  Lamp (7)  |  Prairie (2)  |  Purity (7)  |  Supper (3)  |  Traveler (7)  |  Vial (3)

Suppose the results of a line of study are negative. It might save a lot of otherwise wasted money to know a thing won't work. But how do you accurately evaluate negative results? ... The power plant in [the recently developed streamline trains] is a Diesel engine of a type which was tried out many [around 25] years ago and found to be a failure. ... We didn't know how to build them. The principle upon which it operated was sound. [Since then much has been] learned in metallurgy [and] the accuracy with which parts can be manufactured
When this type of engine was given another chance it was an immediate success [because now] an accuracy of a quarter of a tenth of a thousandth of an inch [prevents high-pressure oil leaks]. ... If we had taken the results of past experience without questioning the reason for the first failure, we would never have had the present light-weight, high-speed Diesel engine which appears to be the spark that will revitalize the railroad business.
— Charles F. Kettering
'Industrial Prospecting', an address to the Founder Societies of Engineers (20 May 1935). In National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series of the National Research Council (1933), No. 107, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (30)  |  Experience (115)  |  Failure (52)  |  Leak (2)  |  Manufacturing (13)  |  Money (82)  |  Negative (9)  |  Principle (87)  |  Railroad (5)  |  Result (103)  |  Train (7)

The power of man to do work—one man-power—is, in its purely physical sense, now an insignificant accomplishment, and could only again justify his existence if other sources of power failed. ... Curious persons in cloisteral seclusion are experimenting with new sources of energy, which, if ever harnessed, would make coal and oil as useless as oars and sails. If they fail in their quest, or are too late, so that coal and oil, everywhere sought for, are no longer found, and the only hope of men lay in their time-honoured traps to catch the sunlight, who doubts that galley-slaves and helots would reappear in the world once more?
— Frederick Soddy
Science and Life (1920), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Coal (17)  |  Energy (89)  |  Solar Energy (12)

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.
— Ralph Nader
Often seen, though without citation, for example, Cutler J. Cleveland and Christopher G. Morris, Dictionary of Energy (2009), 578. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Industry (42)  |  Open (6)  |  Owner (2)  |  Solar Energy (12)  |  Sun (99)

To the north [of Armenia] lies Zorzania [Georgia], near the confines of which there is a fountain of oil which discharges so great a quantity as to furnish loading for many camels. The use made of it is not for the purpose of food, but as an unguent for the cure of cutaneous distempers in men and cattle, as well as other complaints, and it is also good for burning. In the surrounding country no other [oil] is used in their lamps, and people come from distant parts to procure it.
[An early Western report of petroleum seepage. He visited the city of Baku, Azerbaijan in 1264.]
— Marco Polo
In The Travels of Marco Polo (c.1300, trans. reprint 2007), 21-22. Eastern records of petroleum use date back many centuries earlier.
Science quotes on:  |  Burning (12)  |  Camel (4)  |  Cattle (2)  |  Discharge (2)  |  Food (66)  |  Fountain (6)  |  Fuel (14)  |  Georgia (2)  |  Lamp (7)  |  Petroleum (4)  |  Purpose (57)  |  Trade (8)

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
— Thomas Alva Edison
Edison in conversation Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931), quoted as a recollection of the author, in James Newton, Uncommon Friends: Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987), 31. The quote is not cited from a print source. However, in the introduction the author said he “kept a diary in which I noted times and places, key phrases, and vivid impressions.” He also “relied on publications by and about my friends, which jogged my memory.” Webmaster has found no earlier record of this quote, and thus suggests the author may have the gist of what Edison said, but is not quoting the exact words uttered by Edison, although quote marks are used to state what Edison said.
Science quotes on:  |  Bet (3)  |  Coal (17)  |  Energy (89)  |  Farmer (9)  |  Fence (6)  |  Fuel (14)  |  House (17)  |  Inexhaustible (4)  |  Money (82)  |  Power (70)  |  Solar Energy (12)  |  Source (26)  |  Sun (99)  |  Tide (7)  |  Wait (13)  |  Wind (24)

We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance.
— Winston Churchill
Parliamentary Debate (24 Apr 1928). Quoted in Winston Churchill and Richard Langworth (ed.), Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008), 469.
Science quotes on:  |  Coal (17)  |  Energy (89)  |  Fuel (14)



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

More quotes:     Name Index    Isaac Newton    Lord Kelvin    Charles Darwin    Albert Einstein    Aristotle    Michio Kaku    Srinivasa Ramanujan    Carl Sagan    Florence Nightingale    Atomic  Bomb    Biology    Chemistry    Deforestation    Engineering

Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Custom Quotations Search - custom search within only our quotations pages:


Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |



Please add a link from your own site or blog if you find this site useful.
Author Icon by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing the site with Tweets, Facebook and Stumble Upon.






Explore 100 Famous Scientist Quotes Pages

Click above to expand
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton

Scroll above for more
Scientist Quotes Index
Today in Science History ©  1999 - 2013 by Todayinsci ®