science

"The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque."

"We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones."

"Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing."

"You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into."

"In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not..."

"The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music."

"It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself."

"First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure."

"Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach."

"Anyone who thinks cryptozoology is the study of the impossible has never really taken a very good look at the so-called "natural world."Once you get past the megamouth sharks, naked mole rats, and spotted hyenas, then the basilisks, dragons, and cuckoos just don't seem that unreasonable. Unpleasant, yes, but unreasonable? Not really."

"No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere."

"It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch."

"Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel."

"Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life."

"إن التقدم العلمي مهما كان واضحاً بارزاً، لا يمكنه أن يجعل الأخلاق والدين غير ضروريين.فالعلم لا يعلم الناس كيف يحيون، ولا من شأنه أن يقدم لنا معايير قيمية. ذلك لأن القيم التي تسمو بالحياة الحيوانية إلى مستوى الحياة الإنسانية تبقى مجهولة وغير مفهومة بدون الدين. فالدين مدخل إلى عالم أخر متفوق على هذا العالم، والأخلاق هي معناه."

"Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall on the hundred and first."

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

"Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts."

"those who escape hellhowevernever talk aboutitand nothing muchbothers themafterthat."

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."