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Science Quotes

Asimov, Jacob Bronowski, Einstein, Arthur Eddington and Carl Sagan lead the page. The most-sourced writer is Henri Poincaré, with several passages from Science and Hypothesis (1901) and The Value of Science (1905), including the one about doubting everything and believing everything being two equally convenient ways to avoid thinking.

Two entries are flagged. “Etymology is a science in which vowels signify nothing at all, and consonants very little” is credited to Voltaire as disputed, and the notes cite two scholarly articles on where the saying comes from. “Mathematics is the key and door to the sciences” is credited to Galileo and flagged misattributed.

Random quote on Science

Most quoted on science:

Science can be a way of forming intimacy and respect with other species that is rivaled only by the observations of traditional knowledge holders. It can be a path to kinship.

Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny ...'

Isaac Asimov

Science by itself has no moral dimension. But it does seek to establish truth. And upon this truth morality can be built.

William Masters

...no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.

Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

Auguste Comte A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991)

Sam was too good a scientist to let that hope creep into his hypothesizing.

James Blish Giants in the Earth (1952)

Science when well digested is nothing but good sense and reason.

Stanisław Leszczyński

Evolution is at the heart of who we are, what life is on this planet.

Dan Koeppel To See Every Bird on Earth (2005)

People keep saying "science doesn't know everything!" Well, science "knows" it doesn't know everything; otherwise it would stop.

Dara Ó Briain Dara Ó Briain: Live at the Theatre Royal (2006)

Science has given us back something strangely like a World-Soul.

Jane Ellen Harrison

Geometry, which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on man.

Thomas Hobbes Leviathan (1651)

Science is a good piece of furniture for a man to have in an upper chamber, provided he has common sense on the ground floor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Science and mathematics
Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it,
They never touch it: consider what an explosion
Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world
If any mind for a moment touch truth.

Robinson Jeffers The Silent Shepherds (1958)

Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.

H. L. Mencken Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Chemistry, in its application to animals and vegetables. Endeavours jointly with physiology to enlighten us respecting the mysterious processes and sources of organic life.

Justus von Liebig

The life of a biological scientist in the United States is a life of discussion and debate—it is the Talmudic tradition writ large.

Eric Kandel In Search of Memory (2006)

There is no science apart from the general. It may even be said that the very object of the exact sciences is to spare us these direct verifications.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

Science is the most real guide for civilisation, for life, for success in the world. To search for a guide other than science is absurdity, ignorance and heresy.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Giving up Einstein's theory of gravity is simply unacceptable to many in the community. It may take a new generation of physicists to view the evidence with unclouded eyes.

John Moffat Reinventing Gravity (2008)

It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared.

Adolphe Quetelet A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

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