Science & Reason Quotes — page 33

In our modern world we have seen inaugurated the reign of a dull bourgeois rationalism, which finds some inadequate reason for all things in heaven and earth and makes a god of its own infallibility.

This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, Hooke frequently …

"I am in the habit," replied the Prince, "of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered."

Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them are apt to get a bullying habit of mind.

Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.

Could he with reason murmur at his case, Himself sole author of his own disgrace?

Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of …

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

Psycholog­y is in its infancy, as a science. I hope in the interests of Art, it will always remain so.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

We have the greatest admiration for this learned doctor: with what scientific stoicism he walks through the land of wonders, unwondering; like a wise man through some huge, gaudy, imposing Vauxhall, whose fire-works, cascades and …

We need intellect, and there is no reason why we should not have it together with character; but if we must choose between the two we choose character without a moment's hesitation.

I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

Hundreds of men have allowed their imagination to solve the universe, but the men who have contributed to our real understanding of natural phenomena have been those who were unstinting in their application of criticism to the product of …

If in a community of the blind one man suddenly received the gift of sight, he would have much to tell which would not be at all scientific.

I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.

Scientific men get an awkward habit — no, I won't call it that, for it is a valuable habit — of believing nothing unless there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which is not based upon evidence, not only as …

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.

We shall never have a science of economics unless we learn to discern the operation of law even among the most perplexing complications and apparent interruptions.

In a word, human life is more governed by fortune than by reason; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime than as a serious occupation; and is more influenced by particular humour, than by general principles.

This postulate stands, undiscussed

simplicity is of the importance:—and... the more thoroughly a scientific man has studied higher mathematics, the more fully does he become aware of this truth—and... the better qualified does he become to free the exposition and …

'Natural History' ought to form a part of intellectual education, in order to correct certain prejudices which arise from cultivating the intellect by means of mathematics alone and in order to lead the student to see that the division of …

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.