1,096 quotes found
“Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations.”
“[T]hey make poor observations, because they choose among the results of their experiments only what suits their object, neglecting whatever is unrelated to it, and carefully setting aside everythin...”
“[T]he experimental method draws from within itself an impersonal authority which dominates science. It forces this authority even on great men.[…] Every period has its own sum total of errors and o...”
“A contemporary poet has characterized this sense of the personality of art and of the impersonality of science in these words,—Art is myself, science is ourselves.”
“[I]t is important to determine at what point to apply doubt, so as to distinguish it from scepticism, and to show how scientific doubt becomes an element of the greatest certainty. The sceptic disb...”
“Indeed, proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must...”
“[A] living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine.”
“[S]cience, in humbling our pride, proportionately increases our power.”
“[P]articular facts are never scientific; only generalization can establish science.”
“A great surgeon performs operations for stone by a single method; later he makes a statistical summary of deaths and recoveries, and he concludes from these statistics that the mortality law for th...”
“When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.”
“[T]heories are only hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best; but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed.”
“Our language, in fact, is only approximate, and even in science it is so indefinite that if we lose sight of phenomena and cling to words, we are speedily outside of reality.… [W]e must always clin...”
“Ardent desire for knowledge, in fact, is the one motive attracting and supporting investigators in their efforts; and just this knowledge, really grasped and yet always flying before them, becomes ...”
“True science teaches us to doubt and to abstain from ignorance.”
“If I had to define life in a word, it would be: Life is creation.”
“A modern poet has characterized the personality of art and the impersonality of science as follows: Art is I: Science is We.”
“Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.”
“We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.”
“We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.”
