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I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.

— William Thomson

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More quotes by William Thomson

The beauty and clearness of the dynamical theory, which asserts heat and light to be modes of motion, is at present obscured by two clouds.

Mathematics is the only true metaphysics.

Tesla has contributed more to electrical science than any man up to his time.

Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

Life of Lord Kelvin (1910)

To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Thomson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.