Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I once got a call from a bank, asking me to compute a mortgage, since their computers were down. This was a very depressing moment.
I also maintain that clear knowledge of natural science must be acquired, in the first instance, through mastery of medicine alone.
A calculating engine is one of the most intricate forms of mechanism, a telegraph key one of the simplest. But compare their value.
An independant reality in the ordinary physical sense can neither be ascribed to the phenomenon nor to the agencies of observation.
The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.
The fall of a given weight from a height of around 365 meters corresponds to the heating of an equal weight of water from 0° to 1°.
Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.
Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better.
We live in a world economically, socially, and culturally dependent on science not only functioning well, but being wisely applied.
It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.
To someone who could grasp the Universe from a unified standpoint the entire creation would appear as a unique truth and necessity.
Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.
My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go.
[T]he yeoman's work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.
The mind is like a computer. It runs programs. Most of the software has been poorly written. It is written in the language of fear.
Tracing the beginnings of the interwoven stories of science can be arbitrary, as beginnings are so often lost in the mists of time.
You too can win Nobel Prizes. Study diligently. Respect DNA. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Avoid women and politics. That's my formula.
Though neglectful of their responsibility to protect science, scientists are increasingly aware of their responsibility to society.
Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.
Some proofs command assent. Others woo and charm the intellect. They evoke delight and an overpowering desire to say, 'Amen, Amen'.
Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
Unity of plan everywhere lies hidden under the mask: of diversity of structure-the complex is everywhere evolved out of the simple.
What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.
The most important thing is insight, that is to be - curious - to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does.
... the atlas is a manifold. This is a typical mathematician's use of the word "is", and should not be confused with the normal use.
Time does not really exist as we know it; rather it's a transfiguration of a concept in which mortality, mutability, is conditioned.
One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.
A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.
Bankers regard research as most dangerous a thing that makes banking hazardous due to the rapid changes it brings about in industry.
I don't know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels.
What I thought was unreal now, for me, seems in some ways to be more real than what I think to be real, which seems now to be unreal
The self-regulating mechanism of the market place cannot always be depended upon to produce adequate results in scientific research.
Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste.
What have you done for science today? Stop doing things for God! He doesn't need anything. Do something for science, for God's sake!
I will be sufficiently rewarded if when telling it to others you will not claim the discovery as your own, but will say it was mine.
Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world.
In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.
Of science and logic he chatters, As fine and as fast as he can; Though I am no judge of such matters, I'm sure he's a talented man.
To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.
Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor anyone in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.
Science is not ... a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself.
I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science.
Copernicanism and other essential ingredients of modern science survived only because reason was frequently overruled in their past.
It would be as useless to perceive how things 'actually look' as it would be to watch the random dots on untuned television screens.
When searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both actors and spectators.
Ten builders rear an arch, each in turn lifting it higher; but it is the tenth man, who drops in the keystone, who hears our huzzas.
Were it not for gravity one man might hurl another by a puff of his breath into the depths of space, beyond recall for all eternity.
He [said of one or other eminent colleagues] is a very busy man, and half of what he publishes is true, but I don't know which half.
I have never seen the Philosopher's Stone that turns lead into Gold, but I have known the pursuit of it turn a Man's Gold into Lead.
It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT.