Quotes Tagged "scientist"

The more I write, the more I find it hard to describe my work with any contemporary label.

Vulnerable, like all men, to the temptations of arrogance, of which intellectual pride is the worst, he [the scientist] must nevertheless remain sincere and modest, if only because his studies constantly bring home to him that, compared with the gigantic aims of science, his own contribution, no matter how important, is only a drop in the ocean of truth.

Entering a cell, penetrating deep as a flying saucer to find a new galaxy would be an honorable task for a new scientist interested more in the inner state of the soul than in outer space.

The perfect being, huh? There is no such thing as perfect in this world. That may sound cliché, but it’s the truth. The average person admires perfection and seeks to obtain it. But, what’s the point of achieving perfection? There is none. Nothing. Not a single thing. I loathe perfection! If something is perfect, then there is nothing left. There is no room for imagination. No place left for a person to gain additional knowledge or abilities. Do you know what that means? For scientists such as ourselves, perfection only brings despair. It is our job to create things more wonderful than anything before them, but never to obtain perfection. A scientist must be a person who finds ecstasy while suffering from that antimony. In short, the moment that foolishness left your mouth and reached my ears, you had already lost. Of course, that’s assuming you are a scientist

Professor [John] Tyndall once said the finest inspiration he ever received was from an old man who could scarcely read. This man acted as his servant. Each morning the old man would knock on the door of the scientist and call, 'Arise, Sir: it is near seven o'clock and you have great work to do today.

Be brave. Be free from philosophies, prophets and holy lies. Go deep into your feelings and explore the mystery of your body, mind and soul. You will find the truth.

Science is the human endeavor to elevate the self and the society from the darkness of ignorance into the light of wisdom.

I am a scientist, which means, I don't have the luxury to talk nonsense, if it can't pass the test of reasoning, no matter how much it sounds philosophical or spiritual.

True understanding is an indivisible land of liberation beyond all judgement and all conclusions.

Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une accumulation de faits n'est pas plus une science qu'un tas de pierres n'est une maison. The Scientist must set in order. Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

During the first half of the present century we had an Alexander von Humboldt, who was able to scan the scientific knowledge of his time in its details, and to bring it within one vast generalization. At the present juncture, it is obviously very doubtful whether this task could be accomplished in a similar way, even by a mind with gifts so peculiarly suited for the purpose as Humboldt's was, and if all his time and work were devoted to the purpose.

A scientist shouldn't be asked to judge the economic and moral value of his work. All we should ask the scientist to do is find the truth and then not keep it from anyone.

Every scientist is a descendant of Humboldt. We are all his family.

if you want to understand what a science is, you should look in the first in­stance not at its theories or its findings, and certainly not at what its apologists say about it; you should look at what the practitioners of it do.

I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscientific.

Think of facts and figures as bricks and cement, and science or scientific understanding as a building. Without the vision of the architect, it's impossible to construct the building no matter how much bricks and cement you have.

Science works through replication, rectification and modification.

The biggest thing that Stephen Hawking taught me is that an extremely sickly and sedentary person can live to the ripe old age of seventy six.

My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist.

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.