Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.
Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
I hold that popularization of science is successful if, at first, it does no more than spark the sense of wonder.
We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.
The Keck telescope, which is the largest in the world, had opened just before I began my faculty position at UCLA.
The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor, are beginning not to work.
Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking: a way of skeptically interrogating the universe.
It now appears that essentially every star has a planetary system. In the very beginning, we thought at best half.
I hope that by 2050 the entire solar system will have been explored and mapped by flotillas of tiny robotic craft.
Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other.
Only by doing the best we can with the very best that an era offers, do we find the way to do better in the future.
The phrase ‘popular science’ has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific.
Some claim that computers will, by 2050, achieve human capabilities. Of course, in some respects they already have.
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.
Every cell is a triumph of natural selection, and we’re made of trillions of cells. Within us, is a little universe.
There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
If the greenhouse effect is a blanket in which we wrap ourselves to keep warm, nuclear winter kicks the blanket off.
When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.
An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.
In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."
A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars - billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.
How lucky we are to live in this time / the first moment in human history / when we are in fact visiting other worlds
Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.
Lightning is like an elementary spirit, eccentric or rational, clever or silly, passing from one extreme to the other.
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
The fact that someone says something doesn't mean it's true. Doesn't mean they're lying, but it doesn't mean it's true.
The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature. They can't help it.
General writing about science, even if we do it badly, helps us to see our work in perspective and broadens our vision.
Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.
Sure, nobody will make a fortune if we figure out why the Big Bang happened. But just about everyone would like to know.
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
There is nothing personal in the thunderclap of understanding. The lightning that releases it comes from outside oneself.
Here we are in this wholly fantastic universe with scarcely a clue as to whether our existence has any real significance.
May it not be that the brighter stars are like our Sun, the upholding and energizing centers of systems of living beings?
I don't believe any experiment until it is confirmed by theory. I find this is a witty inversion of "conventional" wisdom.
Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand.
The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before.
Unfortunately, a lot of the concepts in the Bible are based on ancient mythology that doesn't fit the findings of science.
We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.
The politics is far harder than the science. And even if we accept the science we have a big issue of how to deal with it.
The Swedish engineer who invented the zip fastener made a greater intellectual leap than many scientists do in a lifetime.
In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfilled a century of dreams!
Our children long for realistic maps of the future that they can be proud of. Where are the cartographers of human purpose?