{ "type": "topic", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science", "heading": "Quotes about science", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md", "quotes_count": 645, "authors_count": 219, "parent": null, "children": [ { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology", "heading": "Quotes about technology" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics", "heading": "Quotes about mathematics" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics", "heading": "Quotes about physics" }, { "name": "psychology", "slug": "psychology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/psychology", "heading": "Quotes about psychology" }, { "name": "artificial intelligence", "slug": "artificial-intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/artificial-intelligence", "heading": "Quotes about artificial intelligence" }, { "name": "the brain", "slug": "the-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-brain", "heading": "Quotes about the brain" }, { "name": "medicine", "slug": "medicine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/medicine", "heading": "Quotes about medicine" } ], "quotes": [ { "id": "8ab0ff78-3277-446e-9571-dac778ef45dd", "slug": "let-ignorance-talk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-de-la-fontaine/fables/let-ignorance-talk", "text": "Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean de La Fontaine", "slug": "jean-de-la-fontaine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-de-la-fontaine" }, "book": { "title": "Fables", "slug": "fables", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-de-la-fontaine/fables" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_de_La_Fontaine#Book_VI-", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:10:01" }, { "id": "e7d80677-7e77-43ef-b003-815320a6b373", "slug": "where-the-telescope", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/where-the-telescope", "text": "Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Victor Hugo", "slug": "victor-hugo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo" }, "book": { "title": "Les Misérables", "slug": "les-miserables", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables#Book_III_-_The_House_in_the_Rue_Plumet", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:09:49" }, { "id": "29d8430d-24dd-4b2f-a486-5e0f0bc6f670", "slug": "this-lowly-sand", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/this-lowly-sand", "text": "This lowly sand which you trample beneath your feet, if you cast it into the furnace, and let it melt and seethe, shall become resplendent crystal, and by means of such as it a Galileo and a Newton shall discover stars.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Victor Hugo", "slug": "victor-hugo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo" }, "book": { "title": "Les Misérables", "slug": "les-miserables", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 503, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables#Book_I_-_Paris_Atomised", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:09:48" }, { "id": "a82e11aa-d02a-4ec4-8aff-e059be1b16db", "slug": "scientific-knowledge-helps", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections/scientific-knowledge-helps", "text": "Scientific knowledge helps us mainly because it makes the wonder to which we are called by nature rather more intelligible.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe", "slug": "johann-wolfgang-von-goethe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe" }, "book": { "title": "Maxims and Reflections", "slug": "maxims-and-reflections", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#Maxims_and_Reflections_(1833)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:15" }, { "id": "c0aeb15f-66f1-4acf-b0b9-25fca02555bc", "slug": "the-advance-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/the-advance-of-science", "text": "The advance of science is not comparable to the changes of a city, where old edifices are pitilessly torn down to give place to new, but to the continuous evolution of zoologic types which develop ceaselessly and end by becoming unrecognizable to the common sight, but where an expert eye finds always traces of the prior work of the centuries past. One must not think then that the old-fashioned theories have been sterile or vain.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Introduction", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:02" }, { "id": "b8b6bdf4-ce90-4127-a40b-c9658923a5c0", "slug": "it-is-because", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/science-and-method/it-is-because", "text": "It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts; that we take delight, now in following the giant courses of the stars, now in scrutinizing the microscope that prodigious smallness which is also a vastness, and now in seeking in geological ages the traces of a past that attracts us because of its remoteness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "Science and Method", "slug": "science-and-method", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/science-and-method" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 23, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Science_and_Method_(1908)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:02" }, { "id": "6d059cc7-2795-49f3-83e6-75010f878d7c", "slug": "the-scientist-does", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/science-and-method/the-scientist-does", "text": "The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "Science and Method", "slug": "science-and-method", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/science-and-method" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 22, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Science_and_Method_(1908)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:02" }, { "id": "979568fe-224e-4afe-bc1a-9371f0fc5c7f", "slug": "to-spend-too", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays/to-spend-too", "text": "To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Essays", "slug": "the-essays", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-essays" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Essays_(Francis_Bacon)#Of_Studies", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:22" }, { "id": "f3029d3b-b986-4b28-a488-6b8444e93404", "slug": "in-fact-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics/in-fact-science", "text": "In fact, science can accomplish nothing by the consideration of individual facts; from time to time it must cast its glance at the world as a whole.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernst Mach", "slug": "ernst-mach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach" }, "book": { "title": "The Science of Mechanics", "slug": "the-science-of-mechanics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Mechanics#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:11" }, { "id": "d99a3e4e-2ff9-4aab-97d1-79bcf86c6e1d", "slug": "e-very-enlightening-progress", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics/e-very-enlightening-progress", "text": "[E]very enlightening progress made in science is accompanied with a certain feeling of disillusionment. We discover that that which appeared wonderful to us is no more wonderful than other things which we know instinctively and regard as self-evident; nay, that the contrary would be much more wonderful; that everywhere the same fact expresses itself. Our puzzle turns out then to be a puzzle no more; it vanishes into nothingness, and takes its place among the shadows of history.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernst Mach", "slug": "ernst-mach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach" }, "book": { "title": "The Science of Mechanics", "slug": "the-science-of-mechanics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "disappointment", "slug": "disappointment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/disappointment" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Mechanics#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:11" }, { "id": "599a29d5-d47e-4df1-99f0-fb0b665f1952", "slug": "the-function-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics/the-function-of-science", "text": "The function of science... is to replace experience. Thus, on the one hand, science must remain in the province of experience, but, on the other, must hasten beyond it, constantly expecting confirmation, constantly expecting the reverse. Where neither confirmation nor refutation is possible, science is not concerned. Science acts and only acts in the domain of uncompleted experience.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernst Mach", "slug": "ernst-mach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach" }, "book": { "title": "The Science of Mechanics", "slug": "the-science-of-mechanics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Mechanics#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:11" }, { "id": "1521a273-227c-4ee1-9415-c60fd5a99369", "slug": "physical-science-does", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics/physical-science-does", "text": "Physical science does not pretend to be a complete view of the world; it simply claims that it is working toward such a complete view in the future. The highest philosophy of the scientific investigator is... toleration of an incomplete conception of the world and the preference for it rather than an apparently perfect, but inadequate conception.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernst Mach", "slug": "ernst-mach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach" }, "book": { "title": "The Science of Mechanics", "slug": "the-science-of-mechanics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-mach/the-science-of-mechanics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Mechanics#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:11" }, { "id": "747f9fa4-bec7-4760-bdfe-bf7a9b7a15b9", "slug": "newton-was-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/basic-economics/newton-was-not", "text": "Newton was not the first man who saw an apple fall. His fame was based on his being the first to understand its implications.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Sowell", "slug": "thomas-sowell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell" }, "book": { "title": "Basic Economics", "slug": "basic-economics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-sowell/basic-economics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Basic_Economics_(Thomas_Sowell)#Ch._4_:_An_Overview_of_Prices", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:02:06" }, { "id": "bfc5c67c-a213-4bd2-a5a9-78a26c39ca78", "slug": "the-cells-in-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeff-hawkins/a-thousand-brains/the-cells-in-your", "text": "The cells in your head are reading these words. Think how remarkable that is.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jeff Hawkins", "slug": "jeff-hawkins", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeff-hawkins" }, "book": { "title": "A Thousand Brains", "slug": "a-thousand-brains", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeff-hawkins/a-thousand-brains" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 13, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins#A_Thousand_Brains_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:01:59" }, { "id": "faa16429-2de9-4553-a0d0-375f743f630c", "slug": "i-see-no-good", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species/i-see-no-good", "text": "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Darwin", "slug": "charles-darwin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin" }, "book": { "title": "On the Origin of Species", "slug": "on-the-origin-of-species", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 421, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species#XIV._Recapitulation_and_Conclusion", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "88ece0b3-e286-46eb-ba0d-f18a3bcaefea", "slug": "in-conclusion-it-appears", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/in-conclusion-it-appears", "text": "In conclusion, it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. It both sharpens, and partly likewise allays that want and craving, which, as Sir J. Herschel remarks, a man experiences although every corporeal sense is fully satisfied. The excitement from the novelty of objects, and the chance of success, stimulate him to increased activity. Moreover as a number of isolated facts soon become uninteresting, the habit of comparison leads to generalization. On the other hand, as the traveller stays but a short space of time in each place, his descriptions must generally consist of mere sketches, instead of detailed observation. Hence arises, as I have found to my cost, a constant tendency to fill up the wide gaps of knowledge, by inaccurate and superficial hypotheses.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Darwin", "slug": "charles-darwin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin" }, "book": { "title": "The Voyage of the Beagle", "slug": "the-voyage-of-the-beagle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/the-voyage-of-the-beagle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 607, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "travel", "slug": "travel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/travel" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle#XXIII._Mauritius_to_England", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "6fb32bb3-e54b-4654-8383-a845ed0df2c4", "slug": "authors-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species/authors-of-the", "text": "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled (emphasis, again, not Darwin's).", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Darwin", "slug": "charles-darwin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin" }, "book": { "title": "On the Origin of Species", "slug": "on-the-origin-of-species", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 428, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species#XIV._Recapitulation_and_Conclusion", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "39d95898-0f9f-4cf2-9bac-3fee6c0da866", "slug": "great-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species/great-is-the", "text": "Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Darwin", "slug": "charles-darwin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin" }, "book": { "title": "On the Origin of Species", "slug": "on-the-origin-of-species", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-darwin/on-the-origin-of-species" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 421, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species#XIV._Recapitulation_and_Conclusion", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:21" }, { "id": "e75aafae-9317-4309-957c-3c74b17a60f4", "slug": "men-who-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/men-who-have", "text": "Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 1, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beliefs", "slug": "beliefs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beliefs" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "e05ea07c-af87-4f98-b550-4f7b34f6556d", "slug": "skepticism-however-cannot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/skepticism-however-cannot", "text": "Skepticism, however, cannot be removed from the scientific process. Science does not function without it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "dff86bf9-ab4a-4e7e-971e-6271ba2744d8", "slug": "a-colleague-once", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/a-colleague-once", "text": "A colleague once defined an academic discipline as a group of scholars who had agreed not to ask certain embarrassing questions about key assumptions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 229, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "2d6dd6bf-1f15-489b-9bdb-6cc901390dbd", "slug": "it-is-better", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/it-is-better", "text": "“It is better to know nothing,” wrote Claude Bernard in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, “than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we constantly seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 347, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "23c44c11-78e9-42ca-9c54-90c6e9befdd3", "slug": "once-the-truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/once-the-truth", "text": "Once the “truth” has been declared, even if it’s based on incomplete evidence, the overwhelming tendency is to interpret all future observations in support of that preconception.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 376, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "04dc0586-010c-4b9b-b570-d905a221c1a9", "slug": "believing-that-your", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories/believing-that-your", "text": "Believing that your hypothesis must be correct before all the evidence is gathered encourages you to interpret the evidence selectively.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gary Taubes", "slug": "gary-taubes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes" }, "book": { "title": "Good Calories, Bad Calories", "slug": "good-calories-bad-calories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gary-taubes/good-calories-bad-calories" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 24, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes#Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:18" }, { "id": "9cc2f0fc-95d7-4082-9fe2-32110cf3b67b", "slug": "a-skill-once", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/f-l-lucas/style/a-skill-once", "text": "A skill once acquired — for example, the power to speak and write and enjoy one’s own language, or another — is less easily lost, more quickly recovered, than mere accumulations of facts. And it seems to me more important to go out into life able to think straight and communicate clearly than even to know — and remember — the contents of every English book since Caedmon. Then, like Medea, even if you lose everything else, you can still feel 'Myself remains'. Whereas stuffed geese, even if stuffed with the Universe, remain geese.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "F. L. Lucas", "slug": "f-l-lucas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/f-l-lucas" }, "book": { "title": "Style", "slug": "style", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/f-l-lucas/style" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 24, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/F._L._Lucas#Style_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:17" }, { "id": "cca8e88e-bc0c-4940-8e65-84193284130e", "slug": "one-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/randall-garrett/lord-darcy/one-of-the", "text": "One of the troubles with the world is that so few laymen take an interest in science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Randall Garrett", "slug": "randall-garrett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/randall-garrett" }, "book": { "title": "Lord Darcy", "slug": "lord-darcy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/randall-garrett/lord-darcy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 346, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Randall_Garrett#Lord_Darcy_(1964-1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:12" }, { "id": "fd9bf9cf-f576-4457-8ae5-21de03e66597", "slug": "thats-unfair-said", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation/thats-unfair-said", "text": "“That’s unfair!” said Daphne.\n\n“No, it’s science,” said her father. “‘Could have’ isn’t good enough. Nor is ‘might have’! ‘Did’ is the trick.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Nation", "slug": "nation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 335, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nation_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:11" }, { "id": "5dd5cb68-d40d-4407-b6f8-64c317ebb3bb", "slug": "daphne-thought-im-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation/daphne-thought-im-learning", "text": "Daphne thought: I’m learning things. I hope I find out soon what they are.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Nation", "slug": "nation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 139, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nation_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:10" }, { "id": "0b659630-2b29-4763-8b4f-ebcb4ac34247", "slug": "she-was-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation/she-was-always", "text": "She was always superstitious about remembering useful things she had been told, at least outside lessons. You would be bound to need it one day. It was a test the world did to make sure you were paying attention.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Nation", "slug": "nation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/nation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 136, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nation_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:06:10" }, { "id": "6915ad98-f630-453e-8d81-db77a380ab70", "slug": "where-the-statue", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-wordsworth/the-prelude/where-the-statue", "text": "Where the statue stood\n\nOf Newton with his prism and silent face,\n\nThe marble index of a mind forever\n\nVoyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Wordsworth", "slug": "william-wordsworth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-wordsworth" }, "book": { "title": "The Prelude", "slug": "the-prelude", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-wordsworth/the-prelude" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Prelude#Book_III", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:54" }, { "id": "f3d3013f-0410-4634-b067-42c7d798eb04", "slug": "we-knew-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/leviathan-falls/we-knew-that", "text": "“We knew that, though.”\n\n“We suspected it.”\n\n“Do we know it now?”\n\n“We suspect it harder,” Elvi said. “We’re scientists. We only know things until someone shows us we’re wrong.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James S. A. Corey", "slug": "james-s-a-corey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan Falls", "slug": "leviathan-falls", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/leviathan-falls" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 151, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey#Leviathan_Falls_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:38" }, { "id": "67b004cb-3841-4c39-9e85-f5275ea12848", "slug": "it-also-meant", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/leviathan-falls/it-also-meant", "text": "It also meant that their reaching out to the artifact had gotten it to reach back. Her experiment was working.\n\nShe’d expected success to feel less like fear.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James S. A. Corey", "slug": "james-s-a-corey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan Falls", "slug": "leviathan-falls", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-s-a-corey/leviathan-falls" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 45, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey#Leviathan_Falls_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:38" }, { "id": "3c39edbb-fda2-47ef-bddc-aad13ffe922a", "slug": "i-am-nothing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky/elder-race/i-am-nothing", "text": "I am nothing but a scientist of sufficiently advanced technology, which is to say a magician.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Adrian Tchaikovsky", "slug": "adrian-tchaikovsky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky" }, "book": { "title": "Elder Race", "slug": "elder-race", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/adrian-tchaikovsky/elder-race" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 197, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Elder_Race_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:17" }, { "id": "df41e20a-5b0c-44c8-ace4-1fe60c51a58f", "slug": "the-reason-we-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy/the-matter-of-everything/the-reason-we-can", "text": "The reason we can say today that we know all this stuff, that we think our theoretical models represent reality, is not because we have pretty mathematics but because we have done experiments.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Suzie Sheehy", "slug": "suzie-sheehy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy" }, "book": { "title": "The Matter of Everything", "slug": "the-matter-of-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy/the-matter-of-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzie_Sheehy#The_Matter_of_Everything_(2023)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:04" }, { "id": "5e5f2b75-1e8b-49dc-9017-f74b6f6e28aa", "slug": "e-xperiments-take-us-to-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy/the-matter-of-everything/e-xperiments-take-us-to-that", "text": "[E]xperiments take us to that frightening frontier of vulnerability: the real world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Suzie Sheehy", "slug": "suzie-sheehy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy" }, "book": { "title": "The Matter of Everything", "slug": "the-matter-of-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/suzie-sheehy/the-matter-of-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzie_Sheehy#The_Matter_of_Everything_(2023)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:05:04" }, { "id": "cb6259fb-4b13-45da-8de2-ab3ef0c5d951", "slug": "the-basic-principles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/the-basic-principles", "text": "The basic principles alone often won't provide specific answers, but they'll provide the context needed to ask the right questions. And if we're used to working things out... we won't feel hopeless when the answer isn't obvious...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "a6fbd3e4-7ee3-4ed6-a92b-183579b48463", "slug": "you-dont-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/you-dont-have", "text": "You don't have to be a qualified scientist to experiment with the world. Knowing some basic principles will set you on the right track... [I]t doesn't even have to be an organized process...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "86012746-1851-413e-b38b-d2c8681796dc", "slug": "science-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/science-is-not", "text": "Science is not about 'them', it's about 'us'... we can all go on this adventure in our own way.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "6947b747-dd62-439f-9c67-24ef443db80a", "slug": "no-one-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/no-one-can", "text": "No one can understand every... detail of our complex world, but the basic principles are fantastically valuable tools...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "0ba0ebda-4bbc-4085-96f6-718b214ce6b4", "slug": "this-is-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/this-is-what", "text": "This is what separates science from other disciplines—a scientific hypothesis must make specific testable predictions. ...[Y]ou have to look hard for consequences that you can check for, and especially... that you can prove wrong.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "0518dc10-9014-43f0-82f1-5df9c2a21123", "slug": "science-is-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/science-is-always", "text": "Science is always trying to prove itself wrong, because that's the quickest route to finding what's actually going on.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:51" }, { "id": "b913d81a-ded7-4506-82fd-9d036d0ddc7f", "slug": "learning-the-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/learning-the-science", "text": "Learning the science of the everyday is a direct route to the... knowledge... every citizen needs...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:50" }, { "id": "a4f06329-490c-4a4c-b635-cf42ab5df8bb", "slug": "physics-is-awesome", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/physics-is-awesome", "text": "Physics is awesome... because the same patterns are universal... in the kitchen and in the furthest reaches of the universe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:50" }, { "id": "2df78b79-a3e6-4488-8afa-582882452e5a", "slug": "s-imilarity-in-patterns", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/s-imilarity-in-patterns", "text": "[S]imilarity in patterns is... a clue that hints at something... fundamental. ...[A] systematic basis for all such formations... This process of discovery is science: the continual refinement and testing of our understanding, alongside the digging that reveals even more...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:50" }, { "id": "1fe7e05a-8309-4c00-adc9-bc1d9d1f7355", "slug": "we-live-on-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup/we-live-on-the", "text": "We live on the edge, perched on the boundary between planet Earth and the rest of the Universe. ...Every human civilization has seen the stars, but no one has touched them. Our home on Earth is the opposite: messy... full of things... we touch and tweak... The physical world is full of startling variety... But this diversity isn't random. Our world is full of patterns.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Helen Czerski", "slug": "helen-czerski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski" }, "book": { "title": "Storm in a Teacup", "slug": "storm-in-a-teacup", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/helen-czerski/storm-in-a-teacup" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Helen_Czerski#Storm_in_a_Teacup_(2016)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:50" }, { "id": "353fe421-c114-4366-ba6b-f3b8fdb0454d", "slug": "school-textbooks-unfortunately", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-dowd/thank-god-for-evolution/school-textbooks-unfortunately", "text": "School textbooks, unfortunately, sometimes render science as dogmatic as any fundamentalist doctrine. In truth, science is quintessentially open to revision and discovery.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Dowd", "slug": "michael-dowd", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-dowd" }, "book": { "title": "Thank God for Evolution", "slug": "thank-god-for-evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-dowd/thank-god-for-evolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Dowd#Thank_God_for_evolution!_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:49" }, { "id": "3fe08e07-157d-4502-8580-ec948449603e", "slug": "pure-science-is-no-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/catherine-webb/the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august/pure-science-is-no-more", "text": "Pure science is no more and no less than the logical process of deduction and experimentation upon observable events. It has no good or bad about it, merely right or wrong in a strictly mathematical definition. What people do with that science is cause for ethical debate, but it is not for the true scientist to concern themselves with that. Leave it to the politicians and philosophers.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Catherine Webb", "slug": "catherine-webb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/catherine-webb" }, "book": { "title": "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August", "slug": "the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/catherine-webb/the-first-fifteen-lives-of-harry-august" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 70, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Catherine_Webb#The_First_Fifteen_Lives_of_Harry_August_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:45" }, { "id": "99fe90c9-738e-4b24-a3d0-549a315e5fb7", "slug": "doing-science-with", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/doing-science-with", "text": "Doing science with awe and humility is a powerful act of reciprocity with the more-than-human world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 252, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:32" }, { "id": "7b57d0d2-9eeb-4560-822f-d43146643c39", "slug": "this-is-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/this-is-what", "text": "This is what we field biologists live for: the chance to be outside in the vital presence of other species, who are generally way more interesting than we are. We get to sit at their feet and listen.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 251, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:32" }, { "id": "0bb29253-a559-4677-8fe5-7e464ce51cfe", "slug": "science-can-be-a-way", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/science-can-be-a-way", "text": "Science can be a way of forming intimacy and respect with other species that is rivaled only by the observations of traditional knowledge holders. It can be a path to kinship.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 252, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "respect", "slug": "respect", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/respect" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:32" }, { "id": "dbf13b5d-3750-4291-a61e-80c2f4b6a458", "slug": "a-theory-to-scientists", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/a-theory-to-scientists", "text": "A theory, to scientists, means something rather different from its popular use, which suggests something speculative or untested. A scientific theory is a cohesive body of knowledge, an explanation that is consistent among a range of cases and can allow you to predict what might happen in unknown situations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 159, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "cf2ed519-146b-41bb-ba2f-55220694b5d9", "slug": "getting-scientists-to-consider", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/getting-scientists-to-consider", "text": "Getting scientists to consider the validity of indigenous knowledge is like swimming upstream in cold, cold water. They’ve been so conditioned to be skeptical of even the hardest of hard data that bending their minds toward theories that are verified without the expected graphs or equations is tough. Couple that with the unblinking assumption that science has cornered the market on truth and there’s not much room for discussion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 160, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "bcc62941-ec78-4aa8-bf77-5d5cb13d72a0", "slug": "experiments-are-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/experiments-are-not", "text": "Experiments are not about discovery but about listening and translating the knowledge of other beings.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 158, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "listening", "slug": "listening", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/listening" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "814a4093-c74b-4977-bb20-f4732ca70c00", "slug": "we-are-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/we-are-all", "text": "We are all the product of our worldviews—even scientists who claim pure objectivity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 163, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beliefs", "slug": "beliefs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beliefs" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "75dfeaa3-9970-43b9-8494-ef83097a90bc", "slug": "to-me-an-experiment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/to-me-an-experiment", "text": "To me, an experiment is a kind of conversation with plants: I have a question for them, but since we don’t speak the same language, I can’t ask them directly and they won’t answer verbally. But plants can be eloquent in their physical responses and behaviors. Plants answer questions by the way they live, by their responses to change; you just need to learn how to ask.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 158, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "6e3a69fc-5b90-48d5-ba0e-32463fbdb702", "slug": "science-and-traditional", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/science-and-traditional", "text": "Science and traditional knowledge may ask different questions and speak different languages, but they may converge when both truly listen to the plants.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 165, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:31" }, { "id": "61676337-d6a7-4409-86d6-91977cceb374", "slug": "to-name-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/to-name-and", "text": "To name and describe you must first see, and science polishes the gift of seeing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 48, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:30" }, { "id": "4d2c78d9-fafa-49f3-a549-37f57638597c", "slug": "youd-think-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/youd-think-that", "text": "You'd think that biologists, of all people, would have words for life. But in scientific language our terminology is used to define the boundaries of our knowing. What lies beyond our grasp remains unnamed.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robin Wall Kimmerer", "slug": "robin-wall-kimmerer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer" }, "book": { "title": "Braiding Sweetgrass", "slug": "braiding-sweetgrass", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 49, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "language", "slug": "language", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:30" }, { "id": "3df03b52-6177-44c0-88c4-5b04bcd0b855", "slug": "science-in-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock/america-before-the-key-to-earths-lost-civilization/science-in-the", "text": "Science in the twenty-first century does not encourage scientists to take risks in their pursuit of \"the facts\"—particularly when those facts call into question long-established notions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Graham Hancock", "slug": "graham-hancock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock" }, "book": { "title": "America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization", "slug": "america-before-the-key-to-earths-lost-civilization", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/graham-hancock/america-before-the-key-to-earths-lost-civilization" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "risk", "slug": "risk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/risk" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock#America_Before:_The_Key_to_Earth's_Lost_Civilization_(2019)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:27" }, { "id": "656a90f4-8c08-457e-855b-fe96bf55a4f0", "slug": "i-suppose-it-might", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lyanda-lynn-haupt/rare-encounters-with-ordinary-birds/i-suppose-it-might", "text": "I suppose it might be argued that, for the amateur watcher seeking a meaningful connection with birds, this attention to remote detail is just another form of scientific reductionism, that harried foe of poetry and wonder. In my experience, it is so much the opposite. The tinier the details I come to comprehend, the more bewildered I become, the richer, it seems, the more inspiring of awe, is the biological life I manage to encounter.\n\nThe minutiae offer a focus that bridges the aesthetic and scientific worlds.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Lyanda Lynn Haupt", "slug": "lyanda-lynn-haupt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lyanda-lynn-haupt" }, "book": { "title": "Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds", "slug": "rare-encounters-with-ordinary-birds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lyanda-lynn-haupt/rare-encounters-with-ordinary-birds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 83, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lyanda_Lynn_Haupt#Rare_Encounters_with_Ordinary_Birds_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:26" }, { "id": "e0c20b0e-523b-4702-bc55-5fb2ea35429a", "slug": "they-are-great", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/pyramids/they-are-great", "text": "They are great minds, he told himself. These are men who are trying to work out how the world fits together, not by magic, not by religion, but just by inserting their brains in whatever crack they can find and trying to lever it apart. (p. 225)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Pyramids", "slug": "pyramids", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/pyramids" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pyramids_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:13" }, { "id": "bb4fdc71-d648-4920-b3e7-4d27c9186256", "slug": "a-great-physicist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-junger/the-glass-bees/a-great-physicist", "text": "A great physicist is always a metaphysicist as well; he has a higher concept of his knowledge and his task.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ernst Jünger", "slug": "ernst-junger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-junger" }, "book": { "title": "The Glass Bees", "slug": "the-glass-bees", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ernst-junger/the-glass-bees" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernst_J%C3%BCnger#The_Glass_Bees_(1957)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:08" }, { "id": "e04551ee-7fb5-4d11-8574-306532a4e4e4", "slug": "healthy-skepticism-is-an-essential", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science/healthy-skepticism-is-an-essential", "text": "“Healthy skepticism is an essential and treasured feature of scientific analysis,” Gibbons added. “But willful distortion of evidence has no place at the table of scientific inquiry.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Chris Mooney", "slug": "chris-mooney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney" }, "book": { "title": "The Republican War on Science", "slug": "the-republican-war-on-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 59, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chris_Mooney#The_Republican_War_on_Science_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:00" }, { "id": "bdf8ee57-560f-4d0f-a2b0-820ed32ecda4", "slug": "when-politicians-use", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science/when-politicians-use", "text": "When politicians use bad science to justify themselves, rather than good science to make up their minds, we can safely assume that wrongheaded and even disastrous decisions lie ahead.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Chris Mooney", "slug": "chris-mooney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney" }, "book": { "title": "The Republican War on Science", "slug": "the-republican-war-on-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 242, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "politics", "slug": "politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chris_Mooney#The_Republican_War_on_Science_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:00" }, { "id": "a3179eb6-351d-4bb0-a6cc-12319a912710", "slug": "the-success-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science/the-success-of-science", "text": "The success of science depends on an apparatus of democratic adjudication—anonymous peer review, open debate, the fact that a graduate student can criticize a tenured professor. These mechanisms are more or less explicitly designed to counter human self-deception. People always think they’re right, and powerful people will tend to use their authority to bolster their prestige and suppress inconvenient opposition. You try to set up the game of science so that the truth will out despite this ugly side of human nature.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Chris Mooney", "slug": "chris-mooney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney" }, "book": { "title": "The Republican War on Science", "slug": "the-republican-war-on-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/chris-mooney/the-republican-war-on-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 1, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chris_Mooney#The_Republican_War_on_Science_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:00" }, { "id": "6e4cf46e-e48d-4c03-b371-b01d4ca515f7", "slug": "when-you-feel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/show-your-work/when-you-feel", "text": "When you feel like you've learned whatever there is to learn from what you're doing, it's time to change course and find something new to learn so that you can move forward. You can't be content with mastery; you have to push yourself to become a student again.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Austin Kleon", "slug": "austin-kleon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon" }, "book": { "title": "Show Your Work!", "slug": "show-your-work", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/show-your-work" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "personal growth", "slug": "personal-growth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/personal-growth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Austin_Kleon#Show_Your_Work!_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:04:00" }, { "id": "ce8f8eb5-9af2-4436-be6b-fa4f57b9c4d3", "slug": "the-great-thing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/steal-like-an-artist/the-great-thing", "text": "The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can't refuse you as an apprentice. You can learn whatever you want from them. They left their lesson plans in their work.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Austin Kleon", "slug": "austin-kleon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon" }, "book": { "title": "Steal Like an Artist", "slug": "steal-like-an-artist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/steal-like-an-artist" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "teachers", "slug": "teachers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/teachers" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Austin_Kleon#Steal_Like_an_Artist_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:59" }, { "id": "4274cae0-7fd5-4c9d-805e-2f56c13ebc39", "slug": "the-best-way", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/show-your-work/the-best-way", "text": "The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others. [...] Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Austin Kleon", "slug": "austin-kleon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon" }, "book": { "title": "Show Your Work!", "slug": "show-your-work", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/austin-kleon/show-your-work" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Austin_Kleon#Show_Your_Work!_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:59" }, { "id": "a0c61b38-1692-47dc-bd38-c6c3d417c0fb", "slug": "science-devises-ever", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/science-devises-ever", "text": "[...] science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity’s powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction. [...] Our will to power, our science, and those v. faculties that elevated us from apes, to savages, to modern man , are the same faculties that'll snuff out Homo sapiens before this century is out!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Mitchell", "slug": "david-mitchell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell" }, "book": { "title": "Cloud Atlas", "slug": "cloud-atlas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 444, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "civilization", "slug": "civilization", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/civilization" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#Letters_from_Zedelghem_(Part_2)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:57" }, { "id": "6c58d959-1e5c-4ddf-8f79-3ab784e094ec", "slug": "i-became-a-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas/i-became-a-scientist", "text": "I became a scientist because... it's like panning for gold in a muddy torrent. Truth is the gold.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Mitchell", "slug": "david-mitchell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell" }, "book": { "title": "Cloud Atlas", "slug": "cloud-atlas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-mitchell/cloud-atlas" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 133, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)#Half-Lives:_The_First_Luisa_Rey_Mystery_(Part_1)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:56" }, { "id": "8a422211-0a34-4acd-9341-29eb7b4c0a35", "slug": "he-believed-in-a-mystical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-october-man/he-believed-in-a-mystical", "text": "“He believed in a mystical connection between the farmer and the soil.”\n\n“And you don’t?” I asked.\n\n“I believe there’s a connection,” she said. “I just happen to believe it’s biochemical.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ben Aaronovitch", "slug": "ben-aaronovitch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch" }, "book": { "title": "The October Man", "slug": "the-october-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/the-october-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 39, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Aaronovitch#The_October_Man_(2019)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:32" }, { "id": "a0832640-1349-4bbd-9815-5712a3fd087e", "slug": "low-sample-size-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/whispers-under-ground/low-sample-size-one", "text": "Low sample size—one of the reasons why magic and science are hard to reconcile.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ben Aaronovitch", "slug": "ben-aaronovitch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch" }, "book": { "title": "Whispers Under Ground", "slug": "whispers-under-ground", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/whispers-under-ground" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 106, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Aaronovitch#Whispers_Under_Ground_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:29" }, { "id": "370ce556-f92c-42a5-a55c-4b494774d3bf", "slug": "so-just-chalk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/whispers-under-ground/so-just-chalk", "text": "So just chalk it up to pixie dust or quantum entanglement, which was the same thing as pixie dust except with the word “quantum” in it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ben Aaronovitch", "slug": "ben-aaronovitch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch" }, "book": { "title": "Whispers Under Ground", "slug": "whispers-under-ground", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/whispers-under-ground" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 9, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Aaronovitch#Whispers_Under_Ground_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:29" }, { "id": "520b7dc9-0256-4657-b914-9923d319951a", "slug": "you-shouldnt-make", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/moon-over-soho/you-shouldnt-make", "text": "“You shouldn’t make jokes about these things,” she said. “Science doesn’t have all the answers, you know.”\n\n“It’s got all the best questions, though.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ben Aaronovitch", "slug": "ben-aaronovitch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch" }, "book": { "title": "Moon Over Soho", "slug": "moon-over-soho", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ben-aaronovitch/moon-over-soho" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 35, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Aaronovitch#Moon_Over_Soho_(2011)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:28" }, { "id": "1809a06d-3b44-450e-8b2d-10977f345595", "slug": "knowledge-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher/abusing-science/knowledge-of-science", "text": "Knowledge of science can have a great impact on social and political policy. Students need to be told, clearly and directly, what statements are supported by the available evidence. It is not the teachers function to offer instead a contrived and unresolved “debate” in which one of the parties is an ill-defined position that lacks any evidence in its favor. To represent as equal ideas of unequal merit is to mislead and confuse. Because the consequences of so deceiving the students may be their later inability to perform their duties as conscientious and informed citizens, such educational practices ought to be recognized for the irresponsible charades they are.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Philip Kitcher", "slug": "philip-kitcher", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher" }, "book": { "title": "Abusing Science", "slug": "abusing-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher/abusing-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 173, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Kitcher#Abusing_Science:_The_Case_Against_Creationism_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:26" }, { "id": "01c44315-181d-46e6-a4de-b60ea09e4caa", "slug": "the-creationists-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher/abusing-science/the-creationists-are", "text": "The Creationists are by no means the first to play on fears about what scientific inquiry will disclose. Anxieties about ourselves endure. If our proper study is indeed the study of humankind, then it has seemed—and still seems—to many that the study is dangerous. Perhaps we shall find out that we were not what we took ourselves to be. But if the historical development of science has indeed sometimes pricked our vanity, it has not plunged us into an abyss of immorality. Arguably, it has liberated us from misconceptions, and thereby aided us in our moral progress.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Philip Kitcher", "slug": "philip-kitcher", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher" }, "book": { "title": "Abusing Science", "slug": "abusing-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/philip-kitcher/abusing-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 202, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_Kitcher#Abusing_Science:_The_Case_Against_Creationism_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:26" }, { "id": "248a47cb-ff55-462d-83d6-b4f7ee253fad", "slug": "as-environmental-author", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/naomi-klein/this-changes-everything/as-environmental-author", "text": "As environmental author Kenneth Brower writes, ‘The notion that science will save us is the chimera that allows the present generation to consume all the resources it wants, as if no generations will follow. It is the sedative that allows civilization to march so steadfastly toward environmental catastrophe. It forestalls the real solution, which will be in the hard, nontechnical work of changing human behavior. p. 289", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Naomi Klein", "slug": "naomi-klein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/naomi-klein" }, "book": { "title": "This Changes Everything", "slug": "this-changes-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/naomi-klein/this-changes-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/This_Changes_Everything_(book)#Dimming_the_Sun:_The_Solution_to_Pollution_Is_%E2%80%A6_Pollution%3F", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:17" }, { "id": "5e1d5570-444f-405c-a995-92d871c03627", "slug": "no-discovery-is-good", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/jizzle/no-discovery-is-good", "text": "\"No discovery is good or evil until men make it that way.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Wyndham", "slug": "john-wyndham", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham" }, "book": { "title": "Jizzle", "slug": "jizzle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/jizzle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 141, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wyndham#Jizzle_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:07" }, { "id": "57901d4b-c948-464f-8d61-c0213e4a42c4", "slug": "the-thrill-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-shubin/the-universe-within/the-thrill-of-the", "text": "The thrill of the scientific hunt is to have an idea whose truth is hitched to predictions that take us to new places to explore, objects to discover, and data to analyze.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Neil Shubin", "slug": "neil-shubin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-shubin" }, "book": { "title": "The Universe Within", "slug": "the-universe-within", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-shubin/the-universe-within" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 132, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Shubin#The_Universe_Within:_The_Deep_History_of_the_Human_Body_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:03" }, { "id": "4483c06d-dafb-4e4c-b775-c551675381bc", "slug": "try-to-keep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/try-to-keep", "text": "Try to keep in mind one of the fundamental aspects of science: letting the evidence form belief rather than belief select evidence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Craven", "slug": "greg-craven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven" }, "book": { "title": "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", "slug": "whats-the-worst-that-could-happen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 206, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Craven#What's_the_Worst_That_Could_Happen%3F:_A_Rational_Response_to_the_Climate_Change_Debate_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:03" }, { "id": "ece299e1-1aec-440c-9b23-7811c7b8ea7e", "slug": "scientists-are-trained", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/scientists-are-trained", "text": "Scientists are trained to not give absolute answers. It is interesting that in recent years, some have started to do so when talking with the media, because they've learned that whenever they include the very scientific words possibly, perhaps, and uncertainty, their conclusions are interpreted by the media and public as simple guesswork.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Craven", "slug": "greg-craven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven" }, "book": { "title": "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", "slug": "whats-the-worst-that-could-happen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 41, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "media", "slug": "media", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Craven#What's_the_Worst_That_Could_Happen%3F:_A_Rational_Response_to_the_Climate_Change_Debate_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:02" }, { "id": "e3c14ba4-cdab-4c17-b52d-3b96cb75af75", "slug": "as-much-as-we-think", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/as-much-as-we-think", "text": "As much as we think science is about being right, the actual practice of the stuff is largely focused on being wrong.\n\nWhy? Because being open to the possibility that you might be wrong is exactly how you get less wrong over time, sort of like saying “I’d better find all the holes in my argument before someone else can.\" Strangely, the way to make your ideas stronger is to try to break them. Looking for errors in your understanding rather than just trying to find supporting evidence is the best way to improve your ideas.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Craven", "slug": "greg-craven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven" }, "book": { "title": "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", "slug": "whats-the-worst-that-could-happen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 47, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Craven#What's_the_Worst_That_Could_Happen%3F:_A_Rational_Response_to_the_Climate_Change_Debate_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:02" }, { "id": "32f61ab4-da32-451c-9169-16b786c23436", "slug": "my-students-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen/my-students-have", "text": "My students have described this process of testing ideas in science as: “Hit it with a sledgehammer and see if it breaks. Whatever survives is the best we've got.\" Science is a very adversarial activity! Hence the old adage among physicists: Physics is a contact sport.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Craven", "slug": "greg-craven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven" }, "book": { "title": "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", "slug": "whats-the-worst-that-could-happen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-craven/whats-the-worst-that-could-happen" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 43, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Craven#What's_the_Worst_That_Could_Happen%3F:_A_Rational_Response_to_the_Climate_Change_Debate_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:02" }, { "id": "250b2129-4206-46cb-acdd-aa5bb97411df", "slug": "it-just-goes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-weir/the-martian/it-just-goes", "text": "“It just goes to show,” Teddy said. “Love of science is universal across all cultures.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Andy Weir", "slug": "andy-weir", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-weir" }, "book": { "title": "The Martian", "slug": "the-martian", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/andy-weir/the-martian" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 247, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andy_Weir#The_Martian_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:03:00" }, { "id": "3cd11755-6237-41d7-8343-b8d31b9d4001", "slug": "it-is-astonishing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara/the-people-in-the-trees/it-is-astonishing", "text": "It is astonishing and a little sad to realize how many discoveries, how many advancements, have been delayed for years, for decades, not because the information was unavailable but because of sheer cowardice, fear of being laughed at, of being ostracized by one's colleagues.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Hanya Yanagihara", "slug": "hanya-yanagihara", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara" }, "book": { "title": "The People in the Trees", "slug": "the-people-in-the-trees", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara/the-people-in-the-trees" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "cowardice", "slug": "cowardice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/cowardice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hanya_Yanagihara#The_People_in_the_Trees_(2013_novel)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:58" }, { "id": "02f437d6-fbcb-46f1-9639-f1ac1be021ee", "slug": "to-be-a-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara/the-people-in-the-trees/to-be-a-scientist", "text": "To be a scientist is to learn to live all one's life with questions that will never be answered, with the knowledge that one was too early or too late, with the anguish of not having been able to guess at the solution that, once presented, seems so obvious that one can only curse oneself for not seeing what one ought to have, if only one had looked in a slightly different direction.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Hanya Yanagihara", "slug": "hanya-yanagihara", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara" }, "book": { "title": "The People in the Trees", "slug": "the-people-in-the-trees", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hanya-yanagihara/the-people-in-the-trees" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hanya_Yanagihara#The_People_in_the_Trees_(2013_novel)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:58" }, { "id": "d4782d88-a8e3-4647-b248-78bd9be79595", "slug": "to-a-logical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/transcendence/to-a-logical", "text": "“To a logical entity, such as myself, the behavior of organic intelligences such as yourself, provides many anomalies. For example, the history of humanity, the species concerning which my data banks have most information, is replete with cases where humans, on little or no evidence, have believed in impossibilities. They have accepted the existence of a variety of improbable entities: of gods and demons, of fairies and elves, of ‘good luck’ charms, of magic potions, of curses and hexes and evil eyes.”\n\n“Tally, if you’re going to blather about—”\n\n“But at the same time, humans and other organic intelligences often seem unwilling to accept the implications and consequences of their own legitimate scientific theories.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "Transcendence", "slug": "transcendence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/transcendence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 256, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#Transcendence_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:33" }, { "id": "8abe40b3-8cb5-4f0e-af3e-ffbd74417ef6", "slug": "theories-were-a-dime", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence/theories-were-a-dime", "text": "Theories were a dime a dozen. The partition that separated science and wishful thinking was evidence: observations and firm facts.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "Convergence", "slug": "convergence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 317, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#Convergence_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:33" }, { "id": "3535e0f5-48ec-4bf0-9bd7-e436fd3ff574", "slug": "darya-stood-up-heard", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/transcendence/darya-stood-up-heard", "text": "Darya stood up, heard her voice rising, and knew she was doing what she insisted what a scientist should never do: allowing passion and the defense of personal theories to interfere with logical analysis.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "Transcendence", "slug": "transcendence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/transcendence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 45, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion" }, { "name": "logic", "slug": "logic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/logic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#Transcendence_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:33" }, { "id": "1a6bcf6b-8200-49c6-b505-f50ecbda1a36", "slug": "science-wasnt-a-show-business", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence/science-wasnt-a-show-business", "text": "Science wasn’t a show-business talent, conducted in large halls and decided by audience applause.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "Convergence", "slug": "convergence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 321, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#Convergence_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:33" }, { "id": "115cb6c5-5d73-4315-9b5c-d9c0b1434ced", "slug": "his-sin-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence/his-sin-was", "text": "His sin was something that scientists had done for thousands of years. Scientists didn’t usually change data, not unless they were outright charlatans. But when facts didn’t agree with theory, there was an awful temptation to find reasons for rejecting the offending data and and hanging on to the theory. Ptolemy had done it. Newton had done it. Darwin had done it. Einstein had done so explicitly.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "Convergence", "slug": "convergence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/convergence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 353, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "integrity", "slug": "integrity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/integrity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#Convergence_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:33" }, { "id": "377c5ace-2db2-4d10-823e-9fdc4c98946a", "slug": "and-there-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/the-compleat-mcandrew/and-there-you", "text": "And there you had it. Most people hate to learn that they are wrong. Not McAndrew. When he’s proved wrong, he’s ecstatic. It means he’s learned something new, and that’s his main reason for existence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Sheffield", "slug": "charles-sheffield", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield" }, "book": { "title": "The Compleat McAndrew", "slug": "the-compleat-mcandrew", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-sheffield/the-compleat-mcandrew" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 200, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sheffield#The_Compleat_McAndrew_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:31" }, { "id": "af901289-cee8-4f20-acab-0ad8926d01d1", "slug": "werent-there-naive", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/the-man-who-fell-to-earth/werent-there-naive", "text": "Weren’t there naive arts and sophisticated arts? And corrupt arts as well? And might that not be true of the sciences too? Could chemistry be more corrupt than botany? But that wasn’t so. It was the uses, the ends…", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter Tevis", "slug": "walter-tevis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis" }, "book": { "title": "The Man Who Fell to Earth", "slug": "the-man-who-fell-to-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-tevis/the-man-who-fell-to-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 142, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Tevis#The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:25" }, { "id": "a48b4a63-8862-4142-84bb-87432949e927", "slug": "if-we-stubbornly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/if-we-stubbornly", "text": "If we stubbornly refuse to look at that which seems magical or incredible, we are in distinguished company. The French Academy announced at one point that it would not accept any further reports of meteorites, since it was clearly impossible for rocks to fall out of the sky. Shortly thereafter a rain of meteorites came close to breaking the windows of the Academy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Marilyn Ferguson", "slug": "marilyn-ferguson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson" }, "book": { "title": "The Aquarian Conspiracy", "slug": "the-aquarian-conspiracy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Ferguson#Chapter_Six,_Liberating_Knowledge:_News_from_the_Frontiers_of_Science", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:21" }, { "id": "7312054f-c158-456c-8bc5-c04fccb1d2e5", "slug": "recall-the-model", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy/recall-the-model", "text": "Recall the model of the paradigm shift introduced by Thomas Kuhn: Every important new idea in science sounds strange at first. As the physicist Niels Bohr put it, great innovations inevitably appear muddled, confusing, and incomplete, only half-understood even by their discoverers, and a mystery to everyone else. There is no hope, Bohr said, for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Marilyn Ferguson", "slug": "marilyn-ferguson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson" }, "book": { "title": "The Aquarian Conspiracy", "slug": "the-aquarian-conspiracy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilyn-ferguson/the-aquarian-conspiracy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Ferguson#Chapter_Six,_Liberating_Knowledge:_News_from_the_Frontiers_of_Science", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:21" }, { "id": "000d06a8-72ee-4e6b-8633-46bc1ad70960", "slug": "as-a-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall/as-a-scientist", "text": "As a scientist, I know this is madness. But I also know this is an act of faith.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Emma Newman", "slug": "emma-newman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman" }, "book": { "title": "Planetfall", "slug": "planetfall", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/emma-newman/planetfall" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 305, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emma_Newman#Planetfall_(2015)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:17" }, { "id": "5e67a690-2b69-43d8-b247-0616bf7d44e5", "slug": "no-data-is-preferable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward/dragons-egg/no-data-is-preferable", "text": "No data is preferable to poor data.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert L. Forward", "slug": "robert-l-forward", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward" }, "book": { "title": "Dragon's Egg", "slug": "dragons-egg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward/dragons-egg" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 26, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "statistics", "slug": "statistics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/statistics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_L._Forward#Dragon's_Egg_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:15" }, { "id": "2cd1ea2f-d70d-4d0b-8155-ba0bb2e61f16", "slug": "you-are-lucky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward/dragons-egg/you-are-lucky", "text": "You are lucky. Very few theoretical scientists ever see their mathematical equations turned into working hardware in their lifetime.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert L. Forward", "slug": "robert-l-forward", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward" }, "book": { "title": "Dragon's Egg", "slug": "dragons-egg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-l-forward/dragons-egg" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 255, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_L._Forward#Dragon's_Egg_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:15" }, { "id": "82df5bd4-57a6-41ef-9370-c3d0401d1aa2", "slug": "its-a-failing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-laumer/a-trace-of-memory/its-a-failing", "text": "“It’s a failing of your culture,” Foster said, “that hypothesis becomes dogma almost overnight. You’re too close to your Neolithic, when the blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the principal to all ‘established facts.’”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Keith Laumer", "slug": "keith-laumer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-laumer" }, "book": { "title": "A Trace of Memory", "slug": "a-trace-of-memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/keith-laumer/a-trace-of-memory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 61, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Keith_Laumer#A_Trace_of_Memory_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:07" }, { "id": "cf5c130b-933d-4d44-a7bd-53f64bcbc327", "slug": "how-did-particle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit/not-even-wrong/how-did-particle", "text": "How did particle physics get itself into its current state where some of its most prominent practitioners question whether their colleagues have given up on science?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter Woit", "slug": "peter-woit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit" }, "book": { "title": "Not Even Wrong", "slug": "not-even-wrong", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit/not-even-wrong" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Not_Even_Wrong_(book,_2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:04" }, { "id": "8085fa32-b175-4468-a4e3-905e76f46972", "slug": "the-standard-model", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit/not-even-wrong/the-standard-model", "text": "The standard model is just too good. It's too hard to find an experimental result that disagrees with it, and too hard to come up with theoretical advances that will address some of the things it leaves unexplained.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter Woit", "slug": "peter-woit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit" }, "book": { "title": "Not Even Wrong", "slug": "not-even-wrong", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-woit/not-even-wrong" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Not_Even_Wrong_(blog)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:02:04" }, { "id": "45700bec-4481-4bd7-9abd-109c6c30ebfe", "slug": "there-are-of-course", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/a-mathematician-reads-the-newspaper/there-are-of-course", "text": "There are, of course, innumerable abuses, countless possible misinterpretations, and depressingly many biased studies, but, done right, the process works; it yields knowledge.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Allen Paulos", "slug": "john-allen-paulos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos" }, "book": { "title": "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper", "slug": "a-mathematician-reads-the-newspaper", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/a-mathematician-reads-the-newspaper" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 180, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Allen_Paulos#A_Mathematician_Reads_the_Newspaper_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:59" }, { "id": "56e7a934-1275-449c-8aa3-bc9e978bd8a2", "slug": "too-often-this", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy/too-often-this", "text": "Too often, this concern for the big picture is simply obscurantist and is put forward by people who prefer vagueness and mystery to (partial) answers. Vagueness is at times necessary and mystery is never in short supply, but I don’t think they’re anything to worship. Genuine science and mathematical precision are more intriguing than are the “facts” published in supermarket tabloids or a romantic innumeracy which fosters credulity, stunts skepticism, and dulls one to real imponderables.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Allen Paulos", "slug": "john-allen-paulos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos" }, "book": { "title": "Innumeracy", "slug": "innumeracy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-allen-paulos/innumeracy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 126, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "secrets", "slug": "secrets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Allen_Paulos#Innumeracy:_Mathematical_Illiteracy_and_its_Consequences_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:58" }, { "id": "ae933fe9-89c4-42dd-a35c-529a3e77198c", "slug": "science-has-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-horgan/the-end-of-science/science-has-only", "text": "Science has only existed for a few hundred years, and its most spectacular achievements have occurred within the last century. Viewed from a historical perspective, the modern era of rapid scientific and technological progress appears to be not a permanent feature of reality, but an abberation, a fluke, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual, and political factors.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Horgan", "slug": "john-horgan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-horgan" }, "book": { "title": "The End Of Science", "slug": "the-end-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-horgan/the-end-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 14, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Horgan_(journalist)#The_End_of_Science_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:30" }, { "id": "beb586d9-3e59-44e0-9f14-ba48ee47f08f", "slug": "look-if-i-could", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/algis-budrys/rogue-moon/look-if-i-could", "text": "Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Algis Budrys", "slug": "algis-budrys", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/algis-budrys" }, "book": { "title": "Rogue Moon", "slug": "rogue-moon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/algis-budrys/rogue-moon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 57, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Algis_Budrys#Rogue_Moon_(1960)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:22" }, { "id": "f0da4c4f-8e07-4532-a759-4b1f110ca1c4", "slug": "hell-how-do-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett/the-long-tomorrow/hell-how-do-you", "text": "“Hell, how do you think the human race ever learned anything, except by trial and error?”\n\n“But it all takes such a long, long time,” said Len.”\n\n“Everything takes a long time. Birthing takes nine months, and dying takes you all the rest of your life, and what are you complaining about, anyway?”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Leigh Brackett", "slug": "leigh-brackett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett" }, "book": { "title": "The Long Tomorrow", "slug": "the-long-tomorrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett/the-long-tomorrow" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett#The_Long_Tomorrow_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:21" }, { "id": "d2ee16cf-e0c2-4c6c-8067-46754011af42", "slug": "i-thought-they", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett/the-long-tomorrow/i-thought-they", "text": "“I thought they knew,” Len said. “I thought they were sure of it.”\n\n“Research isn’t done that way.”\n\n“But how can they spend all that time, and maybe that much more again, if they know it might be all for nothing?”\n\n“Because how would they know if they didn’t try? And because there isn’t any other way to do it.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Leigh Brackett", "slug": "leigh-brackett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett" }, "book": { "title": "The Long Tomorrow", "slug": "the-long-tomorrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/leigh-brackett/the-long-tomorrow" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leigh_Brackett#The_Long_Tomorrow_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:21" }, { "id": "78f6fa0c-6c73-490e-8e58-d811723cf393", "slug": "w-illingness-to-admit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/w-illingness-to-admit", "text": "[W]illingness to admit ignorance... made modern science more dynamic, supple and inquisitive than... previous tradition[s].", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Yuval Noah Harari", "slug": "yuval-noah-harari", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari" }, "book": { "title": "Sapiens", "slug": "sapiens", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari#Chapter_14:_%22The_Discovery_of_Ignorance%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:13" }, { "id": "2375d790-4820-406e-93e4-bfc94e36d2f6", "slug": "the-scientific-revolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens/the-scientific-revolution", "text": "The Scientific Revolution... has been above all a revolution of ignorance. The great discovery... was... that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Yuval Noah Harari", "slug": "yuval-noah-harari", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari" }, "book": { "title": "Sapiens", "slug": "sapiens", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/sapiens" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari#Chapter_14:_%22The_Discovery_of_Ignorance%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:01:13" }, { "id": "9a9ea000-be53-40b8-a09c-2a2dc1096f9a", "slug": "what-is-remarkable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-mind-of-god/what-is-remarkable", "text": "What is remarkable is that human beings are actually able to carry out this code-breaking operation, that the human mind has the necessary intellectual equipment for us to \"unlock the secrets of nature\"...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paul Davies", "slug": "paul-davies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies" }, "book": { "title": "The Mind of God", "slug": "the-mind-of-god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-mind-of-god" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 148, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Davies#The_Mind_of_God:_The_Scientific_Basis_for_a_Rational_World_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:56" }, { "id": "543417b2-c7b5-4dcf-8647-5bf3dbab07f1", "slug": "to-a-physicist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-eerie-silence/to-a-physicist", "text": "To a physicist like me, life looks to be little short of magic: all those dumb molecules conspiring to achieve such clever things!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paul Davies", "slug": "paul-davies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies" }, "book": { "title": "The Eerie Silence", "slug": "the-eerie-silence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-eerie-silence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 31, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Davies#The_Eerie_Silence:_Renewing_Our_Search_for_Alien_Intelligence_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:56" }, { "id": "883490e9-7083-4c3f-b617-c5ec06bd5320", "slug": "the-scientific-quest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-mind-of-god/the-scientific-quest", "text": "The scientific quest is a journey into the unknown.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paul Davies", "slug": "paul-davies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies" }, "book": { "title": "The Mind of God", "slug": "the-mind-of-god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-davies/the-mind-of-god" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 21, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Davies#The_Mind_of_God:_The_Scientific_Basis_for_a_Rational_World_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:55" }, { "id": "11b4d932-bf34-4fae-88b3-2a5c9045293e", "slug": "the-various-creation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-d-barrow/the-origin-of-the-universe/the-various-creation", "text": "The various creation stories of ancient time were not scientific theories in any modern sense. They did not attempt to reveal anything new about the structures of the world; they aimed simply to remove the specter of the unknown from human imaginings.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John D. Barrow", "slug": "john-d-barrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-d-barrow" }, "book": { "title": "The Origin Of The Universe", "slug": "the-origin-of-the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-d-barrow/the-origin-of-the-universe" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mythology", "slug": "mythology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mythology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Barrow#The_Origin_of_the_Universe_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:44" }, { "id": "5f5c1620-1dfc-42ea-869b-a8f713f41828", "slug": "i-ran-an-experiment", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/on-the-steel-breeze/i-ran-an-experiment", "text": "I ran an experiment and I got a result. That’s more useful to us than fifty years of theorising.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "slug": "alastair-reynolds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds" }, "book": { "title": "On the Steel Breeze", "slug": "on-the-steel-breeze", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/on-the-steel-breeze" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 71, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds#On_the_Steel_Breeze_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:42" }, { "id": "03a5abcf-dcd9-42f0-ae7f-b6cfcbd35c34", "slug": "the-world-had", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/blue-remembered-earth/the-world-had", "text": "The world had absorbed the dizzying lessons of modern science easily enough, hadn’t it? Reality was a trick of cognition, an illusion woven by the brain. Beneath the apparently solid skin of the world lay a fizzing unreality of quantum mechanics, playing out on a warped and surreal Salvador Dali landscape. Ghost worlds peeled away from the present with every decision. The universe itself would one day simmer down to absolute entropic stasis, the absolute and literal end of time itself. No action, no memory of an action, no trace of a memory, could endure for ever. Every human deed, from the smallest kindness to the grandest artistic achievement, was ultimately pointless.\n\nBut it wasn’t as if people went around thinking about that when they had lovers to meet, menus to choose from, birthdays to remember. The humdrum concerns of normal life trumped the miraculous every time.…And the knowledge that humanity was not alone in the universe would be as relevant to most as the knowledge that protons were built of quarks.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "slug": "alastair-reynolds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Remembered Earth", "slug": "blue-remembered-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/blue-remembered-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 282, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds#Blue_Remembered_Earth_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:42" }, { "id": "e9d0561b-ae18-4bb5-ae63-39e22bfdf250", "slug": "a-single-data", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/diamond-dogs-turquoise-days/a-single-data", "text": "A single data point—even a single clutch of measurements—could not usually prove or disprove anything, but it might later turn out to play a vital role in a chain of argument, even if it was only in the biasing of some statistical distribution closer to one hypothesis than another. Science, as Naqi had long since realised, was as much a swarming, social process as it was something driven by ecstatic moments of personal discovery.\n\nIt was something she was proud to be part of.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alastair Reynolds", "slug": "alastair-reynolds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds" }, "book": { "title": "Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days", "slug": "diamond-dogs-turquoise-days", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alastair-reynolds/diamond-dogs-turquoise-days" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 188, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alastair_Reynolds#Diamond_Dogs,_Turquoise_Days_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:36" }, { "id": "b7741115-0a45-48d5-8a18-f62257bb4346", "slug": "in-order-to-understand", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-marr/vision/in-order-to-understand", "text": "In order to understand bird flight, we have to understand aerodynamics; only then does the structure of feathers and the different shapes of bird's wings make sense.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Marr", "slug": "david-marr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-marr" }, "book": { "title": "Vision", "slug": "vision", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-marr/vision" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 27, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Marr#Vision,_1982", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:32" }, { "id": "9c92de15-bb1c-4d25-98f6-44898e2f8029", "slug": "science-may-explain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel/the-age-of-insight/science-may-explain", "text": "Science may explain aspects of art but it will not replace the inspiration that art evokes...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eric R. Kandel", "slug": "eric-r-kandel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel" }, "book": { "title": "The Age of Insight", "slug": "the-age-of-insight", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel/the-age-of-insight" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Kandel#The_Age_of_Insight_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:09" }, { "id": "306e2f26-a7df-4d3e-a3a0-7790ce1f8da6", "slug": "a-brain-scan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel/the-age-of-insight/a-brain-scan", "text": "A brain scan may reveal the neural signs of depression, but a Beethoven symphony reveals what that depression feels like. Both perspectives are necessary if we are to fully grasp the nature of mind, yet they are rarely brought together.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eric R. Kandel", "slug": "eric-r-kandel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel" }, "book": { "title": "The Age of Insight", "slug": "the-age-of-insight", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eric-r-kandel/the-age-of-insight" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Kandel#The_Age_of_Insight_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T23:00:08" }, { "id": "78450402-ab44-4032-a9ff-9bd528f9fa61", "slug": "from-the-beginning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lee-smolin/the-trouble-with-physics/from-the-beginning", "text": "From the beginning of physics, there have been those who imagined they would be the last generation to face the unknown. Physics has always seemed to its practitioners to be almost complete. This complacency is shattered only during revolutions, when honest people are forced to admit that they don't know the basics.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Lee Smolin", "slug": "lee-smolin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lee-smolin" }, "book": { "title": "The Trouble with Physics", "slug": "the-trouble-with-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lee-smolin/the-trouble-with-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin#The_Trouble_With_Physics:_The_Rise_of_String_Theory,_The_Fall_of_a_Science,_and_What_Comes_Next_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:56" }, { "id": "d3f81ab9-1811-4a92-92ec-5190e12abcf1", "slug": "these-are-stories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds/these-are-stories", "text": "These are stories that make me more optimistic about our future. Through them I have come to feel more intensely the romance of science and the wonder of being alive right now, at these particular coordinates in spacetime, less alone, more at home, here in the cosmos.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ann Druyan", "slug": "ann-druyan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos: Possible Worlds", "slug": "cosmos-possible-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan#Cosmos:_Possible_Worlds_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:54" }, { "id": "6ec3f58f-2475-4df0-84a3-dc34ea6a5831", "slug": "the-possible-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds/the-possible-world", "text": "The possible world that excites me the most-the future we can still have on this one. The misuse of science endangers our civilization, but science also has redemptive powers. It can cleanse a planetary atmosphere overburdened with carbon dioxide. It can set life free to neutralize the toxins that we have scattered so carelessly. In a society that aspires to become a democracy, a conscious and motivated public can will this possible world into existence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ann Druyan", "slug": "ann-druyan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos: Possible Worlds", "slug": "cosmos-possible-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan#Cosmos:_Possible_Worlds_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:54" }, { "id": "56e67387-598f-42cd-ad58-d936b65e9d25", "slug": "the-words-einstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds/the-words-einstein", "text": "The words Einstein chose to open the 1939 World's Fair echo in my brain: \"If science, like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of the people.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ann Druyan", "slug": "ann-druyan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos: Possible Worlds", "slug": "cosmos-possible-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan#Cosmos:_Possible_Worlds_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:54" }, { "id": "1451feb5-3094-4377-b3b5-5af44097e948", "slug": "the-basic-rules", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds/the-basic-rules", "text": "The basic rules of the road for science: Test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject the ones that fail. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. And question everything. including authority.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ann Druyan", "slug": "ann-druyan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos: Possible Worlds", "slug": "cosmos-possible-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan#Cosmos:_Possible_Worlds_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:54" }, { "id": "10ac841b-1b3a-4672-bc53-5444b02f584d", "slug": "science-like-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds/science-like-love", "text": "Science, like love, is a means to that transcendence, to that soaring experience of the oneness of being fully alive. The scientific approach to nature and my understanding of love are the same:", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ann Druyan", "slug": "ann-druyan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos: Possible Worlds", "slug": "cosmos-possible-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ann-druyan/cosmos-possible-worlds" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan#Cosmos:_Possible_Worlds_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:54" }, { "id": "a9ba86f7-0fc3-4346-b8a8-b8043fa954ac", "slug": "knowledge-of-physical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees/knowledge-of-physical", "text": "Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Blaise Pascal", "slug": "blaise-pascal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal" }, "book": { "title": "Pensees", "slug": "pensees", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/blaise-pascal/pensees" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es#Section_II:_The_Misery_of_Man_without_God_(60-183)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:46" }, { "id": "d1b22f71-c366-406a-9db5-f716123101bd", "slug": "scientific-advance-is-most", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney/how-europe-underdeveloped-africa/scientific-advance-is-most", "text": "Scientific advance is most generally a response to real need.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter Rodney", "slug": "walter-rodney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney" }, "book": { "title": "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa", "slug": "how-europe-underdeveloped-africa", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney/how-europe-underdeveloped-africa" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 183, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Rodney#How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa_(1972)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:35" }, { "id": "2e74489c-29f9-43ec-8ccc-1e0b7a853ab0", "slug": "science-and-technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney/how-europe-underdeveloped-africa/science-and-technology", "text": "Science and technology derive from the effort to understand and control the natural environment. Familiarity with the history of science is essential to an awareness of the development of society.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter Rodney", "slug": "walter-rodney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney" }, "book": { "title": "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa", "slug": "how-europe-underdeveloped-africa", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-rodney/how-europe-underdeveloped-africa" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 28, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Rodney#How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa_(1972)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:34" }, { "id": "16a4e116-7f87-4014-834e-0fd904c95ace", "slug": "don-kayman-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frederik-pohl/man-plus/don-kayman-was", "text": "Don Kayman was too good a scientist to confuse his hopes with observations. He would report what he found. But he knew what he wanted to find.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frederik Pohl", "slug": "frederik-pohl", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frederik-pohl" }, "book": { "title": "Man Plus", "slug": "man-plus", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frederik-pohl/man-plus" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 190, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frederik_Pohl#Man_Plus_(1976)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:30" }, { "id": "fb3f5842-e22d-44c1-b08b-1f4ce21192d4", "slug": "one-day-youre", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicholas-sparks/true-believer/one-day-youre", "text": "\"One day, you're going to learn something that can't be explained with science. And when that happens, your life's going to change in ways you can't imagine.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nicholas Sparks", "slug": "nicholas-sparks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicholas-sparks" }, "book": { "title": "True Believer", "slug": "true-believer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nicholas-sparks/true-believer" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 54, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nicholas_Sparks#True_Believer_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:22" }, { "id": "dd64c9b2-b37e-46ad-8145-027f045582ae", "slug": "of-course-i-dont", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olaf-stapledon/sirius/of-course-i-dont", "text": "Of course I don't want the old religious dope. But I don't want just the new science dope either. I want the truth.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Olaf Stapledon", "slug": "olaf-stapledon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olaf-stapledon" }, "book": { "title": "Sirius", "slug": "sirius", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/olaf-stapledon/sirius" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon#Sirius_(1944)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:18" }, { "id": "cc29b0a4-9368-4302-8d87-fdcb331bea80", "slug": "no-one-really", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon/no-one-really", "text": "No one really starts anything new, Mrs Nemur. Everyone builds on other men's failures. There is nothing really original in science. What each man contributes to the sum of knowledge is what counts.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Keyes", "slug": "daniel-keyes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes" }, "book": { "title": "Flowers For Algernon", "slug": "flowers-for-algernon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Keyes#Flowers_for_Algernon_(1966)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:15" }, { "id": "82332d13-6b54-408f-88af-30c06b507849", "slug": "we-learn-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon/we-learn-what", "text": "We learn what something is not — and that is as important as a positive discovery to the man who is going to pick up from there. At least he knows what not to do.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Keyes", "slug": "daniel-keyes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes" }, "book": { "title": "Flowers For Algernon", "slug": "flowers-for-algernon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Keyes#Flowers_for_Algernon_(1966)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:15" }, { "id": "7faafb1a-3fbf-4453-a05b-d083c2496267", "slug": "strange-about-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon/strange-about-learning", "text": "Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Keyes", "slug": "daniel-keyes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes" }, "book": { "title": "Flowers For Algernon", "slug": "flowers-for-algernon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-keyes/flowers-for-algernon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Keyes#Flowers_for_Algernon_(1966)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:15" }, { "id": "e6ec4c60-ffea-475f-b855-306d78514674", "slug": "this-is-an-exercise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/valentino-braitenberg/vehicles/this-is-an-exercise", "text": "This is an exercise in fictional science, or science fiction, if you like that better. Not for amusement: science fiction in the service of science. Or just science, if you agree that fiction is a part of it, always was, and always will be as long as our brains are only miniscule fragments of the universe, much too small to hold all the facts of the world but not too idle to speculate about them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Valentino Braitenberg", "slug": "valentino-braitenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/valentino-braitenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Vehicles", "slug": "vehicles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/valentino-braitenberg/vehicles" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 1, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Valentino_Braitenberg#Vehicles:_Experiments_in_Synthetic_Psychology_(1984)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:06" }, { "id": "1e93529d-08fb-47a1-9ef1-5bc884c28009", "slug": "science-would-be-ruined", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-gleick/chaos/science-would-be-ruined", "text": "Science would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify the rules of competition by withdrawing entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are nomads by choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the subtle disciplines", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James Gleick", "slug": "james-gleick", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-gleick" }, "book": { "title": "Chaos", "slug": "chaos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-gleick/chaos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 70, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Gleick#Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science,_1987", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:59:02" }, { "id": "45ecf182-d9b1-481f-a66b-cc97b6b09720", "slug": "science-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown/atlas-of-the-heart/science-is-not", "text": "Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brené Brown", "slug": "brene-brown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown" }, "book": { "title": "Atlas of the Heart", "slug": "atlas-of-the-heart", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brene-brown/atlas-of-the-heart" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bren%C3%A9_Brown#Atlas_of_the_Heart:_Mapping_Meaningful_Connection_and_the_Language_of_Human_Experience_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:59" }, { "id": "b94b9cd3-2d8e-4e3e-b643-07f8ca5928ae", "slug": "quantum-physics-emerged", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality/quantum-physics-emerged", "text": "Quantum physics emerged from the Stone Age with an embarrassment of riches - three quantum theories, each claiming to explain the world. As it turned out, all three were right.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nick Herbert", "slug": "nick-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Quantum Reality", "slug": "quantum-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 42, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nick_Herbert_(physicist)#Quantum_Reality_-_Beyond_The_New_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:56" }, { "id": "9104ac16-d967-4324-8cff-cb1b83cc7ff5", "slug": "though-todays-quantum", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality/though-todays-quantum", "text": "Though today's quantum theory shows no sign of weakness, someday it may collapse.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nick Herbert", "slug": "nick-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Quantum Reality", "slug": "quantum-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 52, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nick_Herbert_(physicist)#Quantum_Reality_-_Beyond_The_New_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:56" }, { "id": "8a1c7258-77bb-4ddd-8a7e-414133fde3e3", "slug": "physicists-for-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality/physicists-for-all", "text": "Physicists, for all their odd notions, are basically a conservative lot.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nick Herbert", "slug": "nick-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Quantum Reality", "slug": "quantum-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 55, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nick_Herbert_(physicist)#Quantum_Reality_-_Beyond_The_New_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:56" }, { "id": "06453d4b-aa7d-4d3a-ab85-f389ac85b1f3", "slug": "one-of-the-best-kept", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality/one-of-the-best-kept", "text": "One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nick Herbert", "slug": "nick-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Quantum Reality", "slug": "quantum-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nick-herbert/quantum-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 15, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" }, { "name": "physics", "slug": "physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/physics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nick_Herbert_(physicist)#Quantum_Reality_-_Beyond_The_New_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:56" }, { "id": "c8775d27-57a9-493e-bd58-979f13c29af0", "slug": "leave-spells-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-feast-for-crows/leave-spells-and", "text": "Leave spells and prayers to priests and septons and bend your wits to learning truths a man can trust in.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George RR Martin", "slug": "george-rr-martin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin" }, "book": { "title": "A Feast for Crows", "slug": "a-feast-for-crows", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-feast-for-crows" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire#A_Feast_for_Crows_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:52" }, { "id": "b838028d-38a9-4949-9d8f-1d88116832f2", "slug": "the-best-way", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-storm-of-swords/the-best-way", "text": "The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George RR Martin", "slug": "george-rr-martin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin" }, "book": { "title": "A Storm of Swords", "slug": "a-storm-of-swords", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-rr-martin/a-storm-of-swords" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire#A_Storm_of_Swords_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:51" }, { "id": "47288fe2-a1f7-4a36-9488-58139584025f", "slug": "the-creativity-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-isaacson/steve-jobs/the-creativity-that", "text": "The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter Isaacson", "slug": "walter-isaacson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-isaacson" }, "book": { "title": "Steve Jobs", "slug": "steve-jobs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-isaacson/steve-jobs" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "creativity", "slug": "creativity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/creativity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson#Steve_Jobs", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:45" }, { "id": "f4408db4-76f8-472b-a8d0-ab062d48ee32", "slug": "myriad-contradictory-worlds", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow/only-begotten-daughter/myriad-contradictory-worlds", "text": "“Myriad contradictory worlds,” lectured Professor Jerome Delacato, “forever splitting off from each other like branches on a tree, so that, somewhere out there, I am presently giving a lecture explaining how the many-worlds hypothesis cannot possibly be true.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James Morrow", "slug": "james-morrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow" }, "book": { "title": "Only Begotten Daughter", "slug": "only-begotten-daughter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow/only-begotten-daughter" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 88, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_K._Morrow#Only_Begotten_Daughter_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:28" }, { "id": "3b1b2956-6cb8-4e00-b5b7-d06ace56eed2", "slug": "in-franciss-view", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow/the-wine-of-violence/in-franciss-view", "text": "In Francis’s view there was ultimate gold in this commitment to impractical knowledge, to theories that had no responsibilities other than to be true. On good days the new ideas inched human intellect toward the grand understandings that were science’s pride and joy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James Morrow", "slug": "james-morrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow" }, "book": { "title": "The Wine of Violence", "slug": "the-wine-of-violence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-morrow/the-wine-of-violence" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 130, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_K._Morrow#The_Wine_of_Violence_(1981)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:27" }, { "id": "dc57d6bc-e576-45f6-b14c-c87f9979063d", "slug": "a-geologist-should", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-lyell/principles-of-geology/a-geologist-should", "text": "A geologist should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, zoology, comparative anatomy, botany; in short, in every science relating to organic and inorganic nature. ...But the brief duration of human life, and our limited powers, are so far from permitting us to aspire to such extensive acquisitions, that excellence even in one department is within the reach of few, and those individuals most effectually promote the general progress, who concentrate their thoughts on a limited portion of the field of inquiry.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Charles Lyell", "slug": "charles-lyell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-lyell" }, "book": { "title": "Principles of Geology", "slug": "principles-of-geology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/charles-lyell/principles-of-geology" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 3, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lyell#Chpt.1", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:20" }, { "id": "dfd329a0-fa64-408e-8e53-0b2c21dc76fb", "slug": "in-science-as-in-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger/invitation-to-sociology/in-science-as-in-love", "text": "In science as in love a concentration on technique is quite likely to lead to impotence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter L. Berger", "slug": "peter-l-berger", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger" }, "book": { "title": "Invitation to Sociology", "slug": "invitation-to-sociology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-l-berger/invitation-to-sociology" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_L._Berger#Invitation_to_Sociology_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:14" }, { "id": "08d32cf6-0123-4e06-bef3-e220d527d369", "slug": "science-is-a-smorgasbord", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-haidt/the-righteous-mind/science-is-a-smorgasbord", "text": "Science is a smorgasbord, and Google will guide you to the study that's right for you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Haidt", "slug": "jonathan-haidt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-haidt" }, "book": { "title": "The Righteous Mind", "slug": "the-righteous-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-haidt/the-righteous-mind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 99, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt#The_Righteous_Mind:_Why_Good_People_are_Divided_by_Politics_and_Religion_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:14" }, { "id": "e64b3adb-4036-442a-95b6-2b608dbefcea", "slug": "you-shouldnt-be-looking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/bellwether/you-shouldnt-be-looking", "text": "You shouldn’t be looking for the secret to making people follow fads, you should be looking for the secret to making them think for themselves. Because that’s what science is all about.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Connie Willis", "slug": "connie-willis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis" }, "book": { "title": "Bellwether", "slug": "bellwether", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/bellwether" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 226, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Connie_Willis#Bellwether_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:12" }, { "id": "a5292e51-f226-401b-9006-1f2f5f7c3a4f", "slug": "im-a-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/lincolns-dreams/im-a-scientist", "text": "“I’m a scientist, not a psychiatrist. I don’t believe dreams have a ‘real’ meaning. They’re a physical process, and any ‘reality’ they have lies in the physical. Freud made no attempt to understand the physical. He felt the key to understanding dream lay in content, and came up with an elaborate system of symbols to explain the images in dreams.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Connie Willis", "slug": "connie-willis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis" }, "book": { "title": "Lincoln's Dreams", "slug": "lincolns-dreams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/connie-willis/lincolns-dreams" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 49, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "dreams", "slug": "dreams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Connie_Willis#Lincoln's_Dreams_(1987)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:10" }, { "id": "129f132c-be87-4b1e-a85b-ce08d155fbbe", "slug": "e-conomics-can-never", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang/economics-the-users-guide/e-conomics-can-never", "text": "[E]conomics can never be a science in the sense that physics or chemistry is. There are many different types of economic theory, each emphasizing different aspects of a complex reality, making different moral and political value judgments and drawing different conclusions. ...[E]conomic theories constantly fail to predict real-world developments... not least because human beings have... free will, unlike chemical molecules or [other] physical objects.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ha-Joon Chang", "slug": "ha-joon-chang", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang" }, "book": { "title": "Economics: The User's Guide", "slug": "economics-the-users-guide", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ha-joon-chang/economics-the-users-guide" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "free will", "slug": "free-will", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/free-will" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang#Prologue._Why_Bother%3F_Why_do_You_Need_to_Learn_Economics%3F", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:57" }, { "id": "82f3bf6a-9e3e-4b62-8180-7bc07385f3a9", "slug": "within-one-thing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/masanobu-fukuoka/the-one-straw-revolution/within-one-thing", "text": "Within one thing lie all things, but if all things are brought together not one thing can arise...A person can analyze and investigate a butterfly as far as he likes, but he cannot make a butterfly.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Masanobu Fukuoka", "slug": "masanobu-fukuoka", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/masanobu-fukuoka" }, "book": { "title": "The One-Straw Revolution", "slug": "the-one-straw-revolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/masanobu-fukuoka/the-one-straw-revolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 141, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka#The_One-Straw_Revolution_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:56" }, { "id": "9ae236a8-a236-46e0-8ece-adc0a4555482", "slug": "science-is-unusual", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown/tricks-of-the-mind/science-is-unusual", "text": "Science is unusual in that it is cumulative. It is a system built over time, wherein useful information is retained and ideas that simply don't stand up are discarded, based on the confirmation of knowledge through testing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Derren Brown", "slug": "derren-brown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown" }, "book": { "title": "Tricks Of The Mind", "slug": "tricks-of-the-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown/tricks-of-the-mind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Derren_Brown#Tricks_of_the_Mind_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:46" }, { "id": "73cd44d0-200d-4bc6-830f-04d33488b670", "slug": "if-a-piece", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown/tricks-of-the-mind/if-a-piece", "text": "If a piece of 'alternative medicine' can be shown to work reliably, it ceases to become alternative. It just becomes medicine.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Derren Brown", "slug": "derren-brown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown" }, "book": { "title": "Tricks Of The Mind", "slug": "tricks-of-the-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/derren-brown/tricks-of-the-mind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "medicine", "slug": "medicine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/medicine" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Derren_Brown#Tricks_of_the_Mind_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:46" }, { "id": "2a5c5603-88a9-4b90-9c21-5dd1e7417c5b", "slug": "paradox-is-thus", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-poundstone/labyrinths-of-reason/paradox-is-thus", "text": "Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of the philosophy of science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William Poundstone", "slug": "william-poundstone", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-poundstone" }, "book": { "title": "Labyrinths of Reason", "slug": "labyrinths-of-reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-poundstone/labyrinths-of-reason" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 23, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" }, { "name": "paradox", "slug": "paradox", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/paradox" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Poundstone#Labyrinths_of_Reason_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:45" }, { "id": "be319793-0687-463a-ad86-58e484020a2b", "slug": "youll-remember-i-told", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-blish/black-easter/youll-remember-i-told", "text": "You’ll remember I told you I was interested in the history of science. That involves trying to understand why there wasn’t any science for so long, and why it went into eclipse almost every time it was rediscovered. I think I know why now. I think the human mind goes through a sort of cycle of fear. It can only take so much accumulated knowledge, and then it panics, and starts inventing reasons to throw everything over and go back to a Dark Age…every time with a new, invented mystical reason.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James Blish", "slug": "james-blish", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-blish" }, "book": { "title": "Black Easter", "slug": "black-easter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-blish/black-easter" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 155, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Blish#Black_Easter_(1968)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:35" }, { "id": "f640c146-646e-47d5-9ae0-489ceadbff73", "slug": "science-is-a-kind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels/science-is-a-kind", "text": "Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something — reality — that may not be understood at all.\n\nScience is very good as far as it goes. It has certainly produced powerful benefits. It would be crazy to abandon science, or to deny its validity.\n\nBut it would be equally crazy to think that reality is a forty-four long. Yet it seems as if that is what Western society has done. For hundreds of years, science has been so successful that the tailor has taken over our society. His knowledge seems so much more precise and powerful than the knowledge offered by other disciplines, such as history or psychology or art.\n\nBut in the end one can be left with a nagging sense of emptiness about the creations of science. One may even suspect that there is more to reality than measurements will ever reveal.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "Travels", "slug": "travels", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Travels_(book)#Postscript", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:34" }, { "id": "281d3065-9a76-4639-a765-7dc93374658e", "slug": "science-cant-tell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels/science-cant-tell", "text": "Science can't tell you why anything happens.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "Travels", "slug": "travels", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/travels" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Travels_(book)#Postscript", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:34" }, { "id": "576dbf5f-4401-43e4-b960-c577bdd21c18", "slug": "if-you-cant", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jerry-a-coyne/why-evolution-is-true/if-you-cant", "text": "If you can’t think of an observation that could disprove a theory, that theory simply isn’t scientific.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jerry A. Coyne", "slug": "jerry-a-coyne", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jerry-a-coyne" }, "book": { "title": "Why Evolution Is True", "slug": "why-evolution-is-true", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jerry-a-coyne/why-evolution-is-true" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 138, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jerry_Coyne#Why_Evolution_is_True_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:15" }, { "id": "7ac1ceeb-f3ef-4833-867d-52a8a8a045b0", "slug": "it-was-just-as", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things/it-was-just-as", "text": "It was just as Mandrag said: Nine tenths of alchemy was chemistry. And nine tenths of chemistry was waiting.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Patrick Rothfuss", "slug": "patrick-rothfuss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss" }, "book": { "title": "The Slow Regard of Silent Things", "slug": "the-slow-regard-of-silent-things", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/patrick-rothfuss/the-slow-regard-of-silent-things" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 143, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "patience", "slug": "patience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/patience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patrick_Rothfuss#The_Slow_Regard_of_Silent_Things_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:09" }, { "id": "913020c5-8941-4783-afac-f915ee6675b1", "slug": "science-brings-to-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society/science-brings-to-the", "text": "Science brings to the light of day everything man had believed sacred. Technique takes possession of it and enslaves it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jacques Ellul", "slug": "jacques-ellul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul" }, "book": { "title": "The Technological Society", "slug": "the-technological-society", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacques-ellul/the-technological-society" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 142, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul#The_Technological_Society_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:02" }, { "id": "e72d7578-b142-43bb-be8f-debaf6ccb9c4", "slug": "if-someone-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-musil/the-man-without-qualities/if-someone-were", "text": "If someone were to discover, for instance, that under hitherto unobserved circumstances stones were able to speak, it would take only a few pages to describe and explain so earth-shattering a phenomenon. On the other hand, one can always write yet another book about positive thinking, and this is far from being of only academic interest, since it involves a method that makes it impossible ever to arrive at a clear resolution of life's most important questions. Human activities might be graded by the quantity of words required: the more words, the worse their character. All the knowledge that has led our species from wearing animal skins to people flying, complete with proofs, would fill a handful of reference books, but a bookcase the size of the earth would not suffice to hold all the rest, quite apart from the vast discussions that are conducted not with the pen but with the sword and chains. The thought suggests itself that we carry on our human business in a most irrational manner when we do not use those methods by which the exact sciences have forged ahead in such exemplary fashion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert Musil", "slug": "robert-musil", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-musil" }, "book": { "title": "The Man Without Qualities", "slug": "the-man-without-qualities", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-musil/the-man-without-qualities" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "words", "slug": "words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Musil#The_Man_Without_Qualities_(1930%E2%80%931942)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:57:00" }, { "id": "ad5eda3f-fa5e-4caa-b245-ba1a0a85ea4a", "slug": "secrecy-is-a-compulsive", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt/the-hercules-text/secrecy-is-a-compulsive", "text": "Secrecy is a compulsive reflex in this country. It strangles thought, delays scientific progress, and destroys integrity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jack Mcdevitt", "slug": "jack-mcdevitt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt" }, "book": { "title": "The Hercules Text", "slug": "the-hercules-text", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jack-mcdevitt/the-hercules-text" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 105, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "secrets", "slug": "secrets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_McDevitt#The_Hercules_Text_(1986)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:57" }, { "id": "7a7c8763-a22c-48fe-8897-a7af73afbdf7", "slug": "we-should-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sean-b-carroll/quanta-and-fields/we-should-always", "text": "We should always admit that we don’t know everything but not be so cautious that we don’t want to admit when we do know things. We know the particles we are made of, and the forces by which we interact. That’s one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of humankind. We can be a little bit proud.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sean B. Carroll", "slug": "sean-b-carroll", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sean-b-carroll" }, "book": { "title": "Quanta and Fields", "slug": "quanta-and-fields", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sean-b-carroll/quanta-and-fields" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll#Quanta_and_Fields:_The_Biggest_Ideas_in_the_Universe_(2024)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:56" }, { "id": "809f8930-a8d9-40c1-a1c4-415924a12417", "slug": "and-there-arent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown/and-there-arent", "text": "“And there aren’t any.”\n\n“Mmm,” I said. “Awkward.”\n\n“That’s defeatist talk. I’ll cobble something together. A scholar can never let mere wrongness get in the way of the theory.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "China Miéville", "slug": "china-mieville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville" }, "book": { "title": "Embassytown", "slug": "embassytown", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/embassytown" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 37, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "irony", "slug": "irony", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Embassytown_(2011)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:52" }, { "id": "90eaa033-3192-406f-aeaa-0b5bf4ef1868", "slug": "isaac-was-still", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station/isaac-was-still", "text": "Isaac was still piqued by the ignorance surrounding watercraeft. It brought home to him, again, how much mainstream science was bunk, how much \"analysis\" was just, description-often bad description-hiding behind obfuscatory rubbish.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "China Miéville", "slug": "china-mieville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville" }, "book": { "title": "Perdido Street Station", "slug": "perdido-street-station", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/china-mieville/perdido-street-station" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 28, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville#Chapter_2", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:49" }, { "id": "4275e774-5719-4926-badd-02f709b991d5", "slug": "if-anything-does", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/there-will-be-time/if-anything-does", "text": "“If anything does change man,” he said, “it’s science and technology. Just think about the fact—while it lasts—that parents need not take for granted some of their babies will die. You get a completely different concept of what a child is.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Poul Anderson", "slug": "poul-anderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson" }, "book": { "title": "There Will Be Time", "slug": "there-will-be-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/there-will-be-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 60, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "children", "slug": "children", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson#There_Will_Be_Time_(1972)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:46" }, { "id": "dc80d450-6ac6-4862-87f9-465ce9dd0222", "slug": "in-her-little", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war/in-her-little", "text": "In her little room of a laboratory, everything fit together. She’d met scholars who claimed they needed chaos to function. Perhaps that was true for some, but in her experience, good science wasn’t about sloppy inspiration. It was about meticulous incrementalization.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Rhythm of War", "slug": "rhythm-of-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 982, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Rhythm_of_War_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:40" }, { "id": "689dca84-6bd8-4c81-bf47-626ea732d994", "slug": "she-knew-she", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war/she-knew-she", "text": "She knew she shouldn’t let the lack of results bother her. Real scientists understood that experiments like this weren’t failures; they were necessary steps on the way to discovery.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Rhythm of War", "slug": "rhythm-of-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 796, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Rhythm_of_War_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:40" }, { "id": "4c48123d-2a89-4472-8dbe-320f16c20081", "slug": "we-proved-nothing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war/we-proved-nothing", "text": "“We proved nothing,” Navani said. “We had a single failed experiment.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Rhythm of War", "slug": "rhythm-of-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 874, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Rhythm_of_War_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:40" }, { "id": "873333b2-bfec-4e32-b031-e128c009b37e", "slug": "she-had-been", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war/she-had-been", "text": "She had been around enough intelligent people to know they worked best in an encouraging environment where study and discovery were rewarded.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Rhythm of War", "slug": "rhythm-of-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 261, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Rhythm_of_War_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:39" }, { "id": "7888834d-3277-4cea-9fff-13cae34bd5a8", "slug": "thats-the-trouble", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war/thats-the-trouble", "text": "That’s the trouble with science. It’s never done. Always upending itself. Ruining perfect systems for the little inconvenience of them being wrong.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Rhythm of War", "slug": "rhythm-of-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/rhythm-of-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 222, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Rhythm_of_War_(2020)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:39" }, { "id": "7913aaae-ff23-4a44-ad88-3d6659691c09", "slug": "oh-adolin-shallan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/oathbringer/oh-adolin-shallan", "text": "Oh, Adolin, Shallan thought. He’d arrived at a theory he liked, and now wouldn’t let it go. It was a common mistake warned of in her scientific books.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Brandon Sanderson", "slug": "brandon-sanderson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson" }, "book": { "title": "Oathbringer", "slug": "oathbringer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/brandon-sanderson/oathbringer" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 159, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brandon_Sanderson#Oathbringer_(2017)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:38" }, { "id": "23cdc090-c41c-4cff-bbb8-b9bf77ce6e8c", "slug": "the-true-line", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-a-simon/models-of-my-life/the-true-line", "text": "The true line is not between “hard” natural science and “soft” social sciences, but between precise science limited to highly abstract and simple phenomena in the laboratory and inexact science and technology dealing with complex problems in the real world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Herbert A. Simon", "slug": "herbert-a-simon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-a-simon" }, "book": { "title": "Models of My Life", "slug": "models-of-my-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-a-simon/models-of-my-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 302, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon#Models_of_my_life,_1991", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:32" }, { "id": "f016bed9-a979-45c3-a086-9cf2f4729fbb", "slug": "in-the-elementary", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time/in-the-elementary", "text": "In the elementary equations of the world, the arrow of time appears only where there is heat. The link between time and heat is... fundamental: every time a difference is manifested between the past and the future, heat is involved.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carlo Rovelli", "slug": "carlo-rovelli", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli" }, "book": { "title": "The Order of Time", "slug": "the-order-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli#The_Order_of_Time_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:29" }, { "id": "8fbb6f6a-4b8b-4c08-9236-39323de2a9ba", "slug": "when-two-friends", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time/when-two-friends", "text": "When two friends meet... after one has lived in the mountains and the other at sea level, the watches... will show different times. ...Neither is truer than the other. ...Times are legion: a different one for every point in space. ...there is a vast multitude of them. ...Every clock has its proper time. ...Einstein has shown how to calculate the difference... The world is not like a platoon advancing at the pace of a single commander. It is a network of events affecting each other. ...Physics does not describe how things evolve \"in time\" but how things evolve in their own times, and how \"times\" evolve relative to each other.\n\nTime has lost... its unity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carlo Rovelli", "slug": "carlo-rovelli", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli" }, "book": { "title": "The Order of Time", "slug": "the-order-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli#The_Order_of_Time_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:29" }, { "id": "13b953ca-25a6-45c2-b2a3-7d2cd59c5448", "slug": "the-world-is-made", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time/the-world-is-made", "text": "The World is Made of Events, not Things.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carlo Rovelli", "slug": "carlo-rovelli", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli" }, "book": { "title": "The Order of Time", "slug": "the-order-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carlo-rovelli/the-order-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 85, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli#The_Order_of_Time_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:29" }, { "id": "7d070132-0586-4421-bdbe-3cd03ec90357", "slug": "if-the-evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/stand-on-zanzibar/if-the-evidence", "text": "If the evidence says you’re wrong, you don’t have the right theory. You change the theory, not the evidence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Brunner", "slug": "john-brunner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner" }, "book": { "title": "Stand On Zanzibar", "slug": "stand-on-zanzibar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/stand-on-zanzibar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Brunner#Stand_on_Zanzibar_(1968)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:10" }, { "id": "e3e86aeb-5121-460e-b1c0-dba9dbc1ca99", "slug": "count-yourself-lucky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander/taran-wanderer/count-yourself-lucky", "text": "“Count yourself lucky,” the potter went on, “that you have understood this now and not spent your years in vain hope. This much have you learned, and no learning is wasted.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Lloyd Alexander", "slug": "lloyd-alexander", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander" }, "book": { "title": "Taran Wanderer", "slug": "taran-wanderer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander/taran-wanderer" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lloyd_Alexander#Book_IV:_Taran_Wanderer_(1967)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:07" }, { "id": "09e1ecc5-29a2-43d1-a45f-5c02c204ca43", "slug": "well-that-is-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander/the-book-of-three/well-that-is-one", "text": "Well, that is one of the three foundations of learning: see much, study much, suffer much.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Lloyd Alexander", "slug": "lloyd-alexander", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander" }, "book": { "title": "The Book of Three", "slug": "the-book-of-three", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/lloyd-alexander/the-book-of-three" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "suffering", "slug": "suffering", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/suffering" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lloyd_Alexander#Book_I:_The_Book_of_Three_(1964)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:56:06" }, { "id": "a41efd9f-80c7-4e6d-94ce-1cc65813b141", "slug": "even-if-humanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/even-if-humanity", "text": "Even if humanity is not the reason for which the universe was made, I still wish to understand the way it operates. We human beings may not be the answer to the question why, but I will keep looking for the answer to how.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ted Chiang", "slug": "ted-chiang", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang" }, "book": { "title": "Exhalation", "slug": "exhalation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 269, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Exhalation:_Stories_(2019)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:58" }, { "id": "2602d12c-d761-4c20-8276-a234c3ca70f6", "slug": "what-we-now", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation/what-we-now", "text": "What we now call young-earth creationism used to be common sense; up until the 1600s, it was widely assumed that the world was of recent origin. But as naturalists began looking at their environment more closely, they found clues that called this assumption into question, and over the last four hundred years, those clues have multiplied and interlocked to form the most definitive rebuttal imaginable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ted Chiang", "slug": "ted-chiang", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang" }, "book": { "title": "Exhalation", "slug": "exhalation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ted-chiang/exhalation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 348, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang#Exhalation:_Stories_(2019)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:58" }, { "id": "df316c7d-14eb-4657-8c01-4384d8a2a0c8", "slug": "mankind-may-wring", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-h-tawney/religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism/mankind-may-wring", "text": "Mankind may wring her secrets from nature, and use their knowledge to destroy themselves.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "R. H. Tawney", "slug": "r-h-tawney", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-h-tawney" }, "book": { "title": "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism", "slug": "religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-h-tawney/religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._H._Tawney#Religion_and_the_Rise_of_Capitalism_(1926)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:49" }, { "id": "4a5e7ff3-4f55-4cb4-8d18-1e0dd5248e40", "slug": "a-hundred-years", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world/a-hundred-years", "text": "\"A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies. And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "The Lost World", "slug": "the-lost-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-lost-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#The_Lost_World_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:48" }, { "id": "fb2bd3d0-da70-429e-b7c6-7b63ea188ecb", "slug": "the-problem-with", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clay-shirky/cognitive-surplus/the-problem-with", "text": "The problem with alchemy wasn’t that the alchemists had failed to turn lead into gold—no one could do that. The problem, rather, was that the alchemists had failed uninformatively. As a group, the alchemists were notably reclusive; they typically worked alone, they were secretive about their methods and their results, and they rarely accompanied claims of insight or success with anything that we’d recognize today as documentation, let alone evidence. Alchemical methods were hoarded rather than shared, passed down from master to apprentice, and when the alchemists did describe their experiments, the descriptions were both incomplete and vague. As Boyle himself complained of the alchemists’ publications, “Hermetic Books have such involved Obscuritys that they may justly be compared to Riddles written in Cyphers. For after a Man has surmounted the difficulty of decyphering the Words & Terms, he finds a new & greater difficulty to discover the meaning of the seemingly plain Expression.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Clay Shirky", "slug": "clay-shirky", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clay-shirky" }, "book": { "title": "Cognitive Surplus", "slug": "cognitive-surplus", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clay-shirky/cognitive-surplus" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky#Cognitive_Surplus_:_Creativity_and_Generosity_in_a_Connected_Age_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:45" }, { "id": "78364977-a5f5-4c27-bca6-44d9b5a458cf", "slug": "the-newtonian-principle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-jefferson/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia/the-newtonian-principle", "text": "The Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Jefferson", "slug": "thomas-jefferson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-jefferson" }, "book": { "title": "Notes on the State of Virginia", "slug": "notes-on-the-state-of-virginia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-jefferson/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 171, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Notes_on_the_State_of_Virginia#Query_XVII", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:39" }, { "id": "ff600331-e560-43d9-ba48-e6980fa912a5", "slug": "though-you-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-system-of-the-world/though-you-and", "text": "\"Though you, and most other Fellows of the Royal Society, are true Christians, and believers in Free Will, the very doctrines and methods that the Royal Society has promulgated have caused many to question the existence of God. ... As so much of civilization is rooted in those beliefs, this strikes me as one way in which our System of the World might be set up wrongly and thus self-doomed.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Neal Stephenson", "slug": "neal-stephenson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson" }, "book": { "title": "The System Of The World", "slug": "the-system-of-the-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neal-stephenson/the-system-of-the-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle#Book_Eight:_The_System_of_the_World", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:31" }, { "id": "fa85bdc2-ec86-4780-8802-b3489efb33e7", "slug": "quantum-uncertainty-chaos-these", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/beyond-infinity/quantum-uncertainty-chaos-these", "text": "Quantum uncertainty, chaos—these forever screen precise knowledge of the future from our eyes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Beyond Infinity", "slug": "beyond-infinity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/beyond-infinity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 386, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Beyond_Infinity_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:25" }, { "id": "f9d345a2-0818-4f03-a776-34ceb9caa187", "slug": "indeed-high-blown-rhetoric", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/indeed-high-blown-rhetoric", "text": "Indeed, high-blown rhetoric plus uncheckable consequences were the two sure signatures of the crank.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 270, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "f6aa04fa-c4cb-4593-8ab7-280894cbbc5e", "slug": "but-these-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/but-these-were", "text": "But these were mere passing irritants. Deeper were the systemic troubles. She stressed the many unknowns; the media wanted sharp answers to huge questions, preferably in a compact one-liner. She tried to emphasize the progressive questioning of her method and how all answers were provisional, awaiting confirmation; reporters liked zippy adventure and exciting guesses with, of course, striking visuals in primary colors.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 243, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "media", "slug": "media", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "e45ce990-f8db-469f-8762-248843ff4feb", "slug": "einstein-said-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/einstein-said-that", "text": "Einstein said that the only incomprehensible thing about the universe was that it was comprehensible. But resorting to God forgets what biology says—that our minds came out of the physical world, y’know, through evolution of early brain stems and neural systems to higher levels of complexity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 324, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "e2bf0c1a-9314-4cef-b3bf-a1db8b8e48f2", "slug": "science-was-a-systematic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-martian-race/science-was-a-systematic", "text": "Science was a systematic way to avoid fooling yourself, after all.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "The Martian Race", "slug": "the-martian-race", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-martian-race" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 337, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#The_Martian_Race_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "ddd275a1-5998-48f5-abe9-c7efd40be372", "slug": "the-barely-awake", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/the-barely-awake", "text": "The barely awake public, trained to the attention span of a commercial, thought that science had two children: either consumer yummies, served up by the handmaiden of technology, or else awesome wonders like the beauties of astronomy. The unsettling side they largely ignored, unless for the momentary shock value of, say, swollen insects doing disgusting things. But the root promise of science was of a world unshaped by humans. The expanses of time and space that stretched out from the human community were terrifying, and most avoided even thinking of them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 243, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "90e2a9ba-cd12-4715-b4c6-390d24ec9078", "slug": "physicists-had-abandoned", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/physicists-had-abandoned", "text": "Physicists had abandoned God long ago and hoped that firing repeated questions at nature would get to the truth. What scientists really believed in was that the think-check-think-again style of scientific method would yield some species of Truth.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 289, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "74ac4c7e-0ebc-492a-b12a-5173f3c810db", "slug": "boy-do-i-hate", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/boy-do-i-hate", "text": "“Boy, do I hate these holier-than-thou types.”\n\n“Clerics.”\n\n“Anybody who tries to hem science in, tell it what it can and cannot do. Boundaries are best defined by pushing against them. Expanding our horizons, our sense of wonder.”\n\nShe smiled. “There’s nothing holier than wow!?”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 324, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "5c678f89-2100-4210-8616-6531c022beef", "slug": "there-were-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/there-were-the", "text": "There were the usual anxieties, starkly revealing the uneasiness that ordinary intellectuals had with science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 289, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "25afe6ed-240d-4eb0-aabb-2383d1d0a8c3", "slug": "not-sure-when", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn/not-sure-when", "text": "Not sure. When don’t know, do experiment.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "The Sunborn", "slug": "the-sunborn", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/the-sunborn" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 47, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#The_Sunborn_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "04b1d811-b724-446d-9f9f-a6e688e4c093", "slug": "sciences-success-did", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/sciences-success-did", "text": "Science’s success did not need a God to explain it; the world was enough.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 325, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:24" }, { "id": "f1a8f92f-1152-4f9f-91ed-843430801c8f", "slug": "teaching-was-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/teaching-was-all", "text": "Teaching was all very fine, but research made the heart sing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 51, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "ebd79261-2dfb-45e2-a989-652b7083cf71", "slug": "a-damned-big", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/a-damned-big", "text": "A damned big clue, but pointing at what? When in doubt, get some numbers.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 68, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "c934130d-5abc-4799-9fb2-200cdec88edf", "slug": "only-senators-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/only-senators-and", "text": "Only senators and simpletons thought science took place in neatly drawn boxes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 73, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "politics", "slug": "politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "b3a8bf84-2729-4ead-aefe-32759fe0d660", "slug": "ours-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/ours-is-not", "text": "Ours is not to reason why, ours is to measure and report—the experimenter’s credo.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 201, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "9d9e2c7b-ea51-4479-b6d2-26dcbd1114fa", "slug": "she-sighed-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/she-sighed-were", "text": "She sighed. “We’re just guessing.”\n\n“When you have a Ph. D., you call them hypotheses, not guesses.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 162, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "8bd55571-6fba-48a3-b6ee-a426d864722e", "slug": "ummm-alicia-said", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/ummm-alicia-said", "text": "“Ummm,” Alicia said, trying to be polite. “Still sounds like we’re just making this up as we go along.”\n\n“We are.” Max grinned. “Invent, then check. It’s really the only way to make progress.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 115, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "6b99afad-65c4-4047-abc1-526c832e78d6", "slug": "data-always-overruled", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/data-always-overruled", "text": "Data always overruled theory.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 111, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "59922baf-ef98-4b01-9364-cc7be499963d", "slug": "the-ship-of-theory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/the-ship-of-theory", "text": "The ship of theory could set sail on tides of mathematical grandeur and hope alone, but only data could fill its sails.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 155, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "58c26732-a43f-406b-8f31-f9f6adc0053f", "slug": "to-believe-anything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/to-believe-anything", "text": "To believe anything so far-fetched, I’d have to see a solid calculation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 159, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "4f6522fc-97f1-4f52-959a-aaa291074fd3", "slug": "the-desire-to-find", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/the-desire-to-find", "text": "The desire to find something could provoke what she called “wantum mechanics,” fishing a result out of nothing but noise.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 68, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "self-deception", "slug": "self-deception-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-deception-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "428fa926-b583-4d2a-9dab-004a3dcea7fd", "slug": "engineers-never-liked", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm/engineers-never-liked", "text": "Engineers never liked the unexplained, whereas physicists lived for it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Cosm", "slug": "cosm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/cosm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 42, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Cosm_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "27d56666-0c18-40dc-9443-e87a5b484d46", "slug": "maybe-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/artifact/maybe-is-not", "text": "Maybe is not a theory, you know, it is merely maybe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Artifact", "slug": "artifact", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/artifact" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 203, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Artifact_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "1078cb3b-628a-472a-9798-feccdd930e95", "slug": "in-popularizing-a-scientific", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/artifact/in-popularizing-a-scientific", "text": "In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Artifact", "slug": "artifact", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/artifact" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 270, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Artifact_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:23" }, { "id": "e05ed2e3-aac3-4850-b149-85fbe67f7f3c", "slug": "yes-perhaps-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/yes-perhaps-that", "text": "Yes, perhaps that was it. For decades now the picture of the world painted by the scientists had become strange, distant, unbelievable. Far easier, then, to ignore it than try to understand. Things were too complicated. Why bother? Turn on the telly, luv. Right.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Timescape", "slug": "timescape", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 146, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" }, { "name": "television", "slug": "television", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/television" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Timescape_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:22" }, { "id": "d28ee660-a8af-4f5d-894b-c16d48dbd183", "slug": "science-is-like", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/science-is-like", "text": "Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Timescape", "slug": "timescape", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 498, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "literature", "slug": "literature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Timescape_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:22" }, { "id": "c701f172-e9b6-4d39-b60e-7ddf2f4d9d6a", "slug": "it-was-getting", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/it-was-getting", "text": "It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Timescape", "slug": "timescape", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 411, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "fame", "slug": "fame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fame" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Timescape_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:22" }, { "id": "b15fb4c6-455d-4583-ae06-26e359678055", "slug": "somehow-to-them", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/somehow-to-them", "text": "Somehow to them, the press was always the judge of things scientific.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Timescape", "slug": "timescape", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 236, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "media", "slug": "media", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/media" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Timescape_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:22" }, { "id": "135ccc08-989e-41e4-bf2a-0803e2f9b5eb", "slug": "crank-theories-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape/crank-theories-always", "text": "(Crank theories) always violated the first rule of a scientific model: they were uncheckable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "Timescape", "slug": "timescape", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/timescape" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 235, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#Timescape_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:22" }, { "id": "f31173c5-d5ee-475b-9486-a7f3ea611d0a", "slug": "i-would-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/in-alien-flesh/i-would-have", "text": "I would have to look, try to find a bridge that would make plausible what I knew but could scarcely prove. The standards of science are austere, unforgiving—and who would have it differently? I would have to hedge, to take one step back for each two forward, to compare and suggest and contrast, always sticking close to the data. And despite what I thought I knew now, the data would have to lead, they would have to show the way.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gregory Benford", "slug": "gregory-benford", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford" }, "book": { "title": "In Alien Flesh", "slug": "in-alien-flesh", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gregory-benford/in-alien-flesh" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 244, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Benford#In_Alien_Flesh_(1986)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:21" }, { "id": "85f9676e-1bc7-454b-b826-afc4e9b46ada", "slug": "in-the-space", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/life-on-the-mississippi/in-the-space", "text": "In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mark Twain", "slug": "mark-twain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain" }, "book": { "title": "Life on the Mississippi", "slug": "life-on-the-mississippi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/life-on-the-mississippi" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Life_on_the_Mississippi#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:20" }, { "id": "e543faec-c8f4-451f-9ad0-aa73ac8046a6", "slug": "myths-often-do-a-lot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gilbert-ryle/the-concept-of-mind/myths-often-do-a-lot", "text": "Myths often do a lot of theoretical good, while they are still new.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gilbert Ryle", "slug": "gilbert-ryle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gilbert-ryle" }, "book": { "title": "The Concept of Mind", "slug": "the-concept-of-mind", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gilbert-ryle/the-concept-of-mind" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gilbert_Ryle#The_Concept_of_Mind_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:06" }, { "id": "903fa69d-ad71-4d4c-99a1-16a1cd81e781", "slug": "the-achievements-of-humanity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/the-achievements-of-humanity", "text": "The achievements of humanity are impressive and undeniable... science and technology have brought about radical changes in the way we live and have enabled us to do and create things that would have been considered miraculous even two hundred years ago.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_1,_The_Flowering_of_Human_Consciousness", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "4944976f-e2d8-4386-a156-2c6e8089b8a6", "slug": "science-and-technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth/science-and-technology", "text": "Science and technology have magnified the destructive impact that the dysfunction of the human mind has upon the planet, other lifeforms, and upon humans themselves... the history of the twentieth century is where that dysfunction, that collective insanity, can be most clearly recognized.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eckhart Tolle", "slug": "eckhart-tolle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle" }, "book": { "title": "A New Earth", "slug": "a-new-earth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/a-new-earth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" }, { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_New_Earth#Chapter_1,_The_Flowering_of_Human_Consciousness", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:55:01" }, { "id": "aa31b062-3515-44f9-8100-6e43fc9984f2", "slug": "well-it-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend/well-it-was", "text": "Well, it was true. ... True, he thought, but no one ever got the chance to know it. Oh, they knew it was something, but it couldn’t be that — not that. That was imagination, that was superstition, there was no such thing as that.\n\nAnd, before science had caught up with the legend, the legend had swallowed science and everything.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard Matheson", "slug": "richard-matheson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson" }, "book": { "title": "I Am Legend", "slug": "i-am-legend", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-matheson/i-am-legend" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson#I_Am_Legend_(1954)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:58" }, { "id": "0bf003f5-765e-4df6-8005-203882e8f8e7", "slug": "after-we-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-geertz/the-interpretation-of-cultures/after-we-have", "text": "After we have become familiar with the new idea, however, after it has become part of our general stock of theoretical concepts, our expectations are brought more into balance with its actual uses, and its excessive popularity is ended. A few zealots persist in the old key-to-the-universe view of it; but less driven thinkers settle down after a while to the problems the idea has really generated. They try to apply it and extend it where it applies and where it is capable of extension; and they desist where it does not apply or cannot be extended. It becomes, if it was, in truth, a seminal idea in the first place, a permanent and enduring part of our intellectual armory. But it no longer has the grandiose, all-promising scope, the infinite versatility of apparent application, it once had. The second law of thermodynamics, or the principle of natural selection, or the notion of unconscious motivation, or the organization of the means of production does not explain everything, not even everything human, but it still explains something; and our attention shifts to isolating just what that something is, to disentangling ourselves from a lot of pseudoscience to which, in the first flush of its celebrity, it has also given rise.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Clifford Geertz", "slug": "clifford-geertz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-geertz" }, "book": { "title": "The Interpretation of Cultures", "slug": "the-interpretation-of-cultures", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/clifford-geertz/the-interpretation-of-cultures" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 3, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clifford_Geertz#The_Interpretation_of_Cultures_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:54" }, { "id": "c6031063-40df-4abe-8416-ce976caa54c4", "slug": "its-a-big", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world/its-a-big", "text": "It’s a big coincidence. It’s something we can’t explain. But as far as we know that’s all it is. And if it isn’t, we’ll only find out by discovering more facts, not speculating, no matter how logical that speculation might seem. The way to learn the world is to look at the world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken MacLeod", "slug": "ken-macleod", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod" }, "book": { "title": "Learning The World", "slug": "learning-the-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 148, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_MacLeod#Learning_the_World_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:47" }, { "id": "57b1a965-0edc-4805-b732-685c060b4e51", "slug": "for-us-scientists", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world/for-us-scientists", "text": "For us scientists, on the other wing, life is not quite so simple. Because we learn the unknown. Unlike, hah-hah, our esteemed friends the philosophers, who learn the unknowable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken MacLeod", "slug": "ken-macleod", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod" }, "book": { "title": "Learning The World", "slug": "learning-the-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 51, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_MacLeod#Learning_the_World_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:47" }, { "id": "29890c97-dc78-4e62-8772-fc742d115e1f", "slug": "of-all-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world/of-all-the", "text": "Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken MacLeod", "slug": "ken-macleod", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod" }, "book": { "title": "Learning The World", "slug": "learning-the-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-macleod/learning-the-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 51, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_MacLeod#Learning_the_World_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:47" }, { "id": "c81b85c3-af9a-4473-9367-dcab55414f05", "slug": "do-not-seek", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose/the-road-to-reality/do-not-seek", "text": "Do not seek for reasons in the specific patterns of stars, or of other scattered arrangements of objects; look, instead, for a deeper universal order in the way that things behave.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Roger Penrose", "slug": "roger-penrose", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose" }, "book": { "title": "The Road to Reality", "slug": "the-road-to-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose/the-road-to-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 5, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose#The_Road_to_Reality_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:37" }, { "id": "957b9ffb-5428-4213-b8c3-dbd9749e303e", "slug": "it-is-quite", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose/the-road-to-reality/it-is-quite", "text": "It is quite likely that the 21st century will reveal even more wonderful insights than those that we have been blessed with in the 20th. But for this to happen, we shall need powerful new ideas, which will take us in directions significantly different from those currently being pursued. Perhaps what we mainly need is some subtle change in perspective—something that we all have missed....", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Roger Penrose", "slug": "roger-penrose", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose" }, "book": { "title": "The Road to Reality", "slug": "the-road-to-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-penrose/the-road-to-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 1045, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose#The_Road_to_Reality_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:37" }, { "id": "dc776dca-e264-4c3f-888e-09d0528d468d", "slug": "anecdotal-data-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg/managers-not-mbas/anecdotal-data-is-not", "text": "Anecdotal data is not incidental to theory development at all, but an essential part of it", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henry Mintzberg", "slug": "henry-mintzberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg" }, "book": { "title": "Managers Not MBAs", "slug": "managers-not-mbas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg/managers-not-mbas" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Mintzberg#Managers_Not_MBAs_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:30" }, { "id": "d6c5f4d7-50e0-4295-8034-c0073d6e1c86", "slug": "learning-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg/managers-not-mbas/learning-is-not", "text": "Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing. T. S. Eliot writes in one of his poems, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” Reflection is about getting the meaning.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henry Mintzberg", "slug": "henry-mintzberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg" }, "book": { "title": "Managers Not MBAs", "slug": "managers-not-mbas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henry-mintzberg/managers-not-mbas" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Mintzberg#Managers_Not_MBAs_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:30" }, { "id": "9500f856-a9b9-4e13-ae09-0f89eb4df59c", "slug": "w-hat-i-had", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark/our-mathematical-universe/w-hat-i-had", "text": "[W]hat I had been missing... and what Feynman realized: physics is the ultimate intellectual adventure, the quest to understand the deepest mysteries of our Universe. ...[I]t makes us see more clearly, adding to the beauty and wonder of the world ...[T]he lens of physics adds more beauty to the world ...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Max Tegmark", "slug": "max-tegmark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark" }, "book": { "title": "Our Mathematical Universe", "slug": "our-mathematical-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark/our-mathematical-universe" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark#Our_Mathematical_Universe:_My_Quest_for_the_Ultimate_Nature_of_Reality_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:24" }, { "id": "63aca79d-69b7-476f-9466-66d4026187c5", "slug": "evolution-endowed-us-with", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark/our-mathematical-universe/evolution-endowed-us-with", "text": "Evolution endowed us with intuition only for those aspects of physics that had survival value for our distant ancestors, such as the parabolic orbits of flying rocks (explaining our penchant for baseball). A cavewoman thinking too hard about what matter is ultimately made of might fail to notice the tiger sneaking up behind and get cleaned right out of the gene pool. Darwin’s theory thus makes the testable prediction that whenever we use technology to glimpse reality beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition should break down. We’ve repeatedly tested this prediction, and the results overwhelmingly support Darwin. At high speeds, Einstein realized that time slows down, and curmudgeons on the Swedish Nobel committee found this so weird that they refused to give him the Nobel Prize for his relativity theory. At low temperatures, can flow upward. At high temperatures, colliding particles change identity; to me, an electron colliding with a and turning into a Z-boson feels about as intuitive as two colliding cars turning into a cruise ship. On microscopic scales, particles schizophrenically appear in two places at once, leading to the quantum conundrums... On astronomically large scales... weirdness strikes again: if you intuitively understand all aspects of black holes... put down this book and publish your findings before someone scoops you on the Nobel Prize for quantum gravity… [also,] the leading theory for what happened [in the early universe] suggests that space isn’t merely really really big, but actually infinite, containing infinitely many exact copies of you, and even more near-copies living out every possible variant of your life in two different types of parallel universes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Max Tegmark", "slug": "max-tegmark", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark" }, "book": { "title": "Our Mathematical Universe", "slug": "our-mathematical-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/max-tegmark/our-mathematical-universe" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" }, { "name": "intuition", "slug": "intuition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intuition" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark#Our_Mathematical_Universe:_My_Quest_for_the_Ultimate_Nature_of_Reality_(2014)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:24" }, { "id": "e3f29d5d-71ba-42b6-a378-509d60d6e483", "slug": "you-must-teach", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexandre-dumas/the-count-of-monte-cristo/you-must-teach", "text": "\"You must teach me a small part of what you know,\" said Dantes, \"if only to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe that so learned a person as yourself would prefer absolute solitude to being tormented with the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself. If you will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another word about escaping.\" The abbe smiled. \"Alas, my boy,\" said he, \"human knowledge is confined within very narrow limits; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will know as much as I do myself. Now, it will scarcely require two years for me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess.\"\n\n\"Two years!\" exclaimed Dantes; \"do you really believe I can acquire all these things in so short a time?\"\n\n\"Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alexandre Dumas", "slug": "alexandre-dumas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexandre-dumas" }, "book": { "title": "The Count of Monte Cristo", "slug": "the-count-of-monte-cristo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexandre-dumas/the-count-of-monte-cristo" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:54:03" }, { "id": "1bb8cab2-ce3c-4eba-af61-ac72ce3fe736", "slug": "no-longer-is-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord/comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle/no-longer-is-science", "text": "No longer is science asked to understand the world, or to improve any part of it. It is asked instead to immediately justify everything that happens....spectacular domination has cut down the vast tree of scientific knowledge in order to make itself a truncheon.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Guy Debord", "slug": "guy-debord", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord" }, "book": { "title": "Comments on the Society of the Spectacle", "slug": "comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/guy-debord/comments-on-the-society-of-the-spectacle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guy_Debord#Comments_on_the_Society_of_the_Spectacle_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:35" }, { "id": "90eef3ce-318f-4ba4-ae8f-a2328dfd772c", "slug": "the-game-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joao-magueijo/faster-than-the-speed-of-light/the-game-of-science", "text": "The game of science can accurately be described as a never-ending insult to human intelligence.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "João Magueijo", "slug": "joao-magueijo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joao-magueijo" }, "book": { "title": "Faster Than The Speed Of Light", "slug": "faster-than-the-speed-of-light", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joao-magueijo/faster-than-the-speed-of-light" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "intelligence", "slug": "intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Magueijo#Faster_than_the_Speed_of_Light", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:26" }, { "id": "3eed72b4-6e25-4395-a693-39276885a45e", "slug": "one-could-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-d-watson/the-double-helix/one-could-not", "text": "One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James D. Watson", "slug": "james-d-watson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-d-watson" }, "book": { "title": "The Double Helix", "slug": "the-double-helix", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-d-watson/the-double-helix" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "stupidity", "slug": "stupidity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_D._Watson#The_Double_Helix_(1968)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:13" }, { "id": "a24dc250-8d80-4628-8af6-e92cadb04def", "slug": "the-mathematical-forms", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marie-louise-von-franz/psyche-and-matter/the-mathematical-forms", "text": "The mathematical forms of order which the mind of a physicist manipulates coincides \"miraculously\" with experimental measurements.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Marie-Louise von Franz", "slug": "marie-louise-von-franz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marie-louise-von-franz" }, "book": { "title": "Psyche and Matter", "slug": "psyche-and-matter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/marie-louise-von-franz/psyche-and-matter" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 269, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marie-Louise_von_Franz#Psyche_and_Matter_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:07" }, { "id": "a64da100-8a33-4fcd-abfe-87c8ba1cf03c", "slug": "you-reason-well", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker/dracula/you-reason-well", "text": "You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bram Stoker", "slug": "bram-stoker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker" }, "book": { "title": "Dracula", "slug": "dracula", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker/dracula" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dracula_(novel)#Chapter_XIV", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:03" }, { "id": "09b7d3a9-6c63-40aa-9674-486136a3c34a", "slug": "nothing-is-too", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker/dracula/nothing-is-too", "text": "Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bram Stoker", "slug": "bram-stoker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker" }, "book": { "title": "Dracula", "slug": "dracula", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bram-stoker/dracula" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dracula_(novel)#Chapter_X", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:03" }, { "id": "181a3004-657b-4924-a7ac-72a42dc9341b", "slug": "by-instructing-students", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alvin-toffler/future-shock/by-instructing-students", "text": "By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alvin Toffler", "slug": "alvin-toffler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alvin-toffler" }, "book": { "title": "Future Shock", "slug": "future-shock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alvin-toffler/future-shock" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler#Future_Shock_(1970)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:53:01" }, { "id": "3ab17ca1-5acd-4b45-a2e5-628ed75a1adb", "slug": "were-we-really", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/all-men-are-mortal/were-we-really", "text": "Were we really more advanced than the alchemists of Carmona? We had brought to light certain facts that they were not aware of, we had organised them into the right order; but had we advanced even a step nearer to the mysterious heart of the universe?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Simone de Beauvoir", "slug": "simone-de-beauvoir", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir" }, "book": { "title": "All Men Are Mortal", "slug": "all-men-are-mortal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/all-men-are-mortal" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#All_Men_are_Mortal_(1946)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:51" }, { "id": "f07e4525-ef6d-47a4-b306-85ce0e45112f", "slug": "animals-cry-at-least", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/animals-cry-at-least", "text": "Animals cry. At least, they vocalise pain or distress, and perhaps call for help. Most people believe, therefore, that animals can be unhappy and also that they have such feelings as happiness, anger and fear. But there is a tremendous gap between the common sense viewpoint and that of official science on this subject. The ordinary layperson readily believes that his dog, her eat, their parrot or horse, feels. They not only believe it but have constant evidence of it before their eyes. All of us have extraordinary stories of animals we know well. Yet, by dint of rigorous training and great efforts of the mind, most modern scientists — especially those who study the behaviour of animals — have succeeded in becoming almost blind to these matters.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson", "slug": "jeffrey-moussaieff-masson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson" }, "book": { "title": "When Elephants Weep", "slug": "when-elephants-weep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 11, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "animals", "slug": "animals", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/animals" }, { "name": "emotions", "slug": "emotions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emotions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson#When_Elephants_Weep_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:37" }, { "id": "726b5200-0359-4a28-adbe-e843dbc53483", "slug": "it-is-often", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/it-is-often", "text": "It is often said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass, most people would be vegetarians. If the general public knew what went on inside animal experimentation laboratories, they would be abolished. However, the parallel is not exact. Slaughterhouses are invisible because the public wants them that way. Everyone knows what goes on inside them; they simply do not want to be confronted with it. Most people do not know what goes on with animal experimentation. Slaughterhouses allow visits. Laboratories where animal experiments are performed are secretive. Perhaps those who conduct the experiments know they would be stopped if what they do were known even by other scientists. Perhaps they are ashamed.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson", "slug": "jeffrey-moussaieff-masson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson" }, "book": { "title": "When Elephants Weep", "slug": "when-elephants-weep", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 216, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "animals", "slug": "animals", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/animals" }, { "name": "cruelty", "slug": "cruelty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/cruelty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson#When_Elephants_Weep_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:37" }, { "id": "d91acc9c-8eba-4203-950f-4edace94c672", "slug": "an-excess-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-a-lafferty/space-chantey/an-excess-of-science", "text": "An excess of science will leave none of us alive.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "R. A. Lafferty", "slug": "r-a-lafferty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-a-lafferty" }, "book": { "title": "Space Chantey", "slug": "space-chantey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/r-a-lafferty/space-chantey" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._A._Lafferty#Space_Chantey_(1968)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:32" }, { "id": "5f3b69c1-7329-41f9-ac9e-d428d6947afa", "slug": "a-faith-which", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/norbert-wiener/the-human-use-of-human-beings/a-faith-which", "text": "A faith which we follow upon orders imposed from outside is no faith, and a community which puts its dependence upon such a pseudo-faith is ultimately bound to ruin itself because of the paralysis which the lack of a healthy growing science imposes upon it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Norbert Wiener", "slug": "norbert-wiener", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/norbert-wiener" }, "book": { "title": "The Human Use Of Human Beings", "slug": "the-human-use-of-human-beings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/norbert-wiener/the-human-use-of-human-beings" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 193, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#The_Human_Use_of_Human_Beings_(1950)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:18" }, { "id": "4bef49ec-3799-44b9-84cb-93b68a0b7a98", "slug": "white-blood-cells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel/white-blood-cells", "text": "White blood cells and other cells of ours actively seek out and kill foreign microbes. The specific antibodies that we gradually build up against a particular microbe infecting us make us less likely to get reinfected once we become cured. As we all know from experience, there are some illnesses, such as flu and the common cold, to which our resistance is only temporary; we can eventually contract the illness again. Against other illnesses, though—including measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, and the now defeated smallpox — our antibodies stimulated by one infection confer lifelong immunity. That's the principle of vaccination: to stimulate our antibody production without our having to go through the actual experience of the disease, by inoculating us with a dead or weakened strain of microbe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jared Diamond", "slug": "jared-diamond", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond" }, "book": { "title": "Guns, Germs, and Steel", "slug": "guns-germs-and-steel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/guns-germs-and-steel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "illness", "slug": "illness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/illness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond#Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel:_The_Fates_of_Human_Societies_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:06" }, { "id": "03b928c1-2531-4fbd-8ef4-affb0eeea8d1", "slug": "physiologists-and-molecular", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/why-is-sex-fun/physiologists-and-molecular", "text": "Physiologists and molecular biologists regularly fall into the trap of overlooking this distinction, which is fundamental to biology, history, and human behavior. Physiology and molecular biology can do no more than identify proximate mechanisms; only evolutionary biology can provide ultimate causal explanations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jared Diamond", "slug": "jared-diamond", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond" }, "book": { "title": "Why Is Sex Fun?", "slug": "why-is-sex-fun", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jared-diamond/why-is-sex-fun" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 108, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond#Why_Is_Sex_Fun%3F:_The_Evolution_of_Human_Sexuality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:06" }, { "id": "7de714c5-0f82-4820-80ba-0a3a9d8a175d", "slug": "dont-you-bully", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel/life-of-pi/dont-you-bully", "text": "Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Yann Martel", "slug": "yann-martel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel" }, "book": { "title": "Life Of Pi", "slug": "life-of-pi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel/life-of-pi" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 330, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "love", "slug": "love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yann_Martel#Life_of_Pi_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:03" }, { "id": "753971c1-1b9e-464c-9778-7f48de58e34e", "slug": "scientists-are-a-friendly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel/life-of-pi/scientists-are-a-friendly", "text": "Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Yann Martel", "slug": "yann-martel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel" }, "book": { "title": "Life Of Pi", "slug": "life-of-pi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/yann-martel/life-of-pi" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 5, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yann_Martel#Life_of_Pi_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:03" }, { "id": "c9444293-e8a3-4a59-9485-1982a82e3d6b", "slug": "while-many-questions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murray-gell-mann/the-quark-and-the-jaguar/while-many-questions", "text": "While many questions about quantum mechanics are still not fully resolved, there is no point in introducing needless mystification where in fact no problem exists. Yet a great deal of recent writing about quantum mechanics has done just that.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Murray Gell-Mann", "slug": "murray-gell-mann", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murray-gell-mann" }, "book": { "title": "The Quark And The Jaguar", "slug": "the-quark-and-the-jaguar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murray-gell-mann/the-quark-and-the-jaguar" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 167, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#The_Quark_and_the_Jaguar_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:44" }, { "id": "cd8c5f39-daf9-4bb2-8db2-1ac8e55ab958", "slug": "for-ages-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/for-ages-the", "text": "For ages the army of spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere, from the riven murky cloud that belches forth lightning, and from those fairer clouds that pillow the silvery moon or fret with flakes of burning red the golden eve.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "989090aa-db6c-4c57-a93c-710312bfd344", "slug": "the-slow-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/the-slow-the", "text": "The slow, the never ending approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and testing hypotheses, accepting those at which at the time seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "7a55fc8f-3fa9-44db-ad92-10db46225c0b", "slug": "from-the-earliest", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/from-the-earliest", "text": "From the earliest times man has been engaged in a search for general rules whereby to turn the order of natural phenomena to his own advantage, and in the long search he has scraped together a great hoard of such maxims, some of them golden and some of them mere dross. The true or golden rules constitute the body of applied science which we call the arts; the false are magic.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "78854c7b-457e-4003-9e24-bd6897c4b451", "slug": "the-abundance-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/the-abundance-the", "text": "The abundance, the solidity, and the splendor of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its method.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "680ae4d6-f8e8-4655-86e5-79a7b9abee8e", "slug": "it-is-probably", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/it-is-probably", "text": "It is probably not too much to say that the hope of progress--moral and intellectual as well as material--in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technological progress", "slug": "technological-progress", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technological-progress" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "1c680ec0-0b35-4132-abe9-5a35b27749cc", "slug": "the-advance-of-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough/the-advance-of-knowledge", "text": "The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that ever recedes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James George Frazer", "slug": "james-george-frazer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer" }, "book": { "title": "The Golden Bough", "slug": "the-golden-bough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-george-frazer/the-golden-bough" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Frazer#The_Golden_Bough_(1890)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:38" }, { "id": "1f56028d-d947-46f6-b63a-eae0841d81db", "slug": "you-dont-remember", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets/you-dont-remember", "text": "You don’t remember your first ancestors. You have no memory of ninety-nine percent of what makes you what you are! Instead you have comfy baby-stories you tell yourselves to explain why you’re not good people. What sin you committed or how you didn’t do with this god or that god told you. Instead of learning how not to be bad, you learn how to be forgiven and carried off to heaven. Most of you find it easier to believe the baby-stories than to learn from history and science, because it takes brains and hard study to understand history and science, but the stories are simple and comfy. People who want things easy and comfy resent people who study things. They teach their children the comfy stories and tell them not to worry about studying, just buy a ticket to go to heaven, and gradually, everyone becomes as ignorant as everyone else. It’s happened time after time on Earth.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sheri S. Tepper", "slug": "sheri-s-tepper", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper" }, "book": { "title": "The Margarets", "slug": "the-margarets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-margarets" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 302, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper#The_Margarets_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:28" }, { "id": "19d7c66d-2c70-467d-ab87-63cb1578dc6f", "slug": "even-when-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor/even-when-you", "text": "“Even when you went to the moon, you didn’t go in search of truth. Oh, you said it was to learn about the universe, but you really went because you were playing a dominance game with another country. Once the other side no longer played the game, you only pretended to go on while actually you started the long slide back into magic and miracles.”\n\nNell said angrily, “Miracles are religion!”\n\n”It doesn’t matter what name you call it,” said the small god. “Magic or miracle, sorcery or religion, it’s all the same.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sheri S. Tepper", "slug": "sheri-s-tepper", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper" }, "book": { "title": "The Visitor", "slug": "the-visitor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 460, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper#The_Visitor_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:27" }, { "id": "5e2e0c53-9427-42f6-8e7f-44d84c331d6d", "slug": "many-children-who", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/seymour-a-papert/mindstorms/many-children-who", "text": "Many children who grow up in our cities are surrounded by the artifacts of science but have good reason to see them as belonging to \"the others\"; in many cases they are perceived as belonging to the social enemy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Seymour A. Papert", "slug": "seymour-a-papert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/seymour-a-papert" }, "book": { "title": "Mindstorms", "slug": "mindstorms", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/seymour-a-papert/mindstorms" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "children", "slug": "children", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/children" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert#Mindstorms:_Children,_Computers,_and_Powerful_Ideas_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:51:17" }, { "id": "fe954026-f12e-445b-a7f7-32de17cb9d41", "slug": "discovery-is-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/jurassic-park/discovery-is-always", "text": "Discovery is always a rape of the natural world. Always.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "Jurassic Park", "slug": "jurassic-park", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/jurassic-park" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 284, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(novel)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:52" }, { "id": "acf5448a-8ac4-4928-b24a-c56743ca3029", "slug": "and-i-am-infinitely", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man/and-i-am-infinitely", "text": "And I am infinitely saddened to find myself suddenly surrounded in the west by a sense of terrible loss of nerve, a retreat from knowledge into—into what? Into Zen Buddhism; into falsely profound questions about, Are we not really just animals at bottom; into extra-sensory perception and mystery. They do not lie along the line of what we are able to know if we devote ourselves to it: an understanding of man himself. We are nature’s unique experiment to make the rational intelligence prove itself sounder than the reflex. Knowledge is our destiny. Self-knowledge, at last bringing together the experience of the arts and the explanations of science, waits ahead of us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jacob Bronowski", "slug": "jacob-bronowski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski" }, "book": { "title": "The Ascent Of Man", "slug": "the-ascent-of-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski#The_Ascent_of_Man_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:50" }, { "id": "882c0fa0-8ace-46d7-9fe9-9a97bcd165df", "slug": "its-said-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man/its-said-that", "text": "It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known; we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: \"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken.\"I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here, to stand here as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jacob Bronowski", "slug": "jacob-bronowski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski" }, "book": { "title": "The Ascent Of Man", "slug": "the-ascent-of-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" }, { "name": "Holocaust", "slug": "holocaust", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/holocaust" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski#The_Ascent_of_Man_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:50" }, { "id": "3532b9fa-91d9-4977-98ad-1bca98096097", "slug": "one-aim-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man/one-aim-of-the", "text": "One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable. There is no absolute knowledge and those who claim it, whether they are scientist or dogmatist, open the door to tragedy. All knowledge, all information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jacob Bronowski", "slug": "jacob-bronowski", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski" }, "book": { "title": "The Ascent Of Man", "slug": "the-ascent-of-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jacob-bronowski/the-ascent-of-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski#The_Ascent_of_Man_(1973)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:49" }, { "id": "e8b26cb7-d8be-44e6-a443-2a48d5aec66e", "slug": "and-so-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/kiln-people/and-so-the", "text": "And so the fighting retreat continues. Each time science advances, a new bastion forms…a new line, defining some remnant territory to be kept forever holy, mystical, and vague. Safe from profane hands. Until the next scientific advance, that is.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Brin", "slug": "david-brin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin" }, "book": { "title": "Kil’n People", "slug": "kiln-people", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/kiln-people" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 252, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Brin#Kiln_People_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:46" }, { "id": "46fe3450-4012-4434-9117-3127c8e6e8c7", "slug": "yet-where-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/kiln-people/yet-where-were", "text": "Yet where were answers to the truly deep questions?\n\nReligion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don’t look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Brin", "slug": "david-brin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin" }, "book": { "title": "Kil’n People", "slug": "kiln-people", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-brin/kiln-people" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 482, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Brin#Kiln_People_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:46" }, { "id": "97123a4a-cdc1-4615-acf9-4795cfeab896", "slug": "ignorance-has-been", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/ignorance-has-been", "text": "\"Ignorance has been our king. Since the death of empire, he sits unchallenged on the throne of Man. His dynasty is age-old. His right to rule is now considered legitimate. Past sages have affirmed it. They did nothing to unseat him.\n\n\"Tomorrow, a new prince shall rule. Men of understanding, men of science shall stand behind his throne, and the universe will come to know his might. His name is Truth. His empire shall encompass the Earth. And the mastery of Man ever the Earth shall be renewed. A century from now, men will fly through the air in mechanical birds. Metal carriages will race along roads of man-made stone. There will be buildings of thirty stories, ships that go under the sea, machines to perform all works.\n\n\"And how will this come to pass?\" He paused and lowered his voice. \"In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear. And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter M. Miller Jr.", "slug": "walter-m-miller-jr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr" }, "book": { "title": "A Canticle for Leibowitz", "slug": "a-canticle-for-leibowitz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "change", "slug": "change", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change" }, { "name": "violence", "slug": "violence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/violence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller_Jr.#Fiat_Lux", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:41" }, { "id": "7bb5918c-7d57-4228-abd9-4eb9f0bc8a23", "slug": "objective-evidence-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/objective-evidence-is-the", "text": "Objective evidence is the ultimate authority. Recorders may lie, but Nature is incapable of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Walter M. Miller Jr.", "slug": "walter-m-miller-jr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr" }, "book": { "title": "A Canticle for Leibowitz", "slug": "a-canticle-for-leibowitz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller_Jr.#Fiat_Lux", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:41" }, { "id": "16e7da0c-6a05-4d1b-8e46-640099e1c6d4", "slug": "empirical-evidence-is-never", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis/empirical-evidence-is-never", "text": "Empirical evidence is never complete.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "W. Edwards Deming", "slug": "w-edwards-deming", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming" }, "book": { "title": "Out of the Crisis", "slug": "out-of-the-crisis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/w-edwards-deming/out-of-the-crisis" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 351, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Out_Of_The_Crisis_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:25" }, { "id": "87297eea-b69e-4560-a082-751cad84a8db", "slug": "the-progress-of-human", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-mammoth-encyclopedia-of-the-unsolved/the-progress-of-human", "text": "The progress of human knowledge depends on maintaining that touch of scepticism even about the most \"unquestionable\" truths. A century ago, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was regarded as scientifically unshakeable; today, most biologists have their reservations about it. Fifty years ago, Freud's sexual theory of neurosis was accepted by most psychiatrists; today, it is widely recognized that his methods were highly questionable. At the turn of this century, a scientist who questioned Newton's theory of gravity would have been regarded as insane; twenty years later, it had been supplanted by Einstein's theory, although, significantly, few people actually understood it. It seems perfectly conceivable that our descendants of the twenty-second century will wonder how any of us could have been stupid enough to have been taken in by Darwin, Freud or Einstein.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Colin Wilson", "slug": "colin-wilson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson" }, "book": { "title": "The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unsolved", "slug": "the-mammoth-encyclopedia-of-the-unsolved", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-mammoth-encyclopedia-of-the-unsolved" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "doubt", "slug": "doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson#The_Mammoth_Encyclopedia_of_the_Unsolved_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:23" }, { "id": "0c2383f2-2728-425f-a4bb-43519fa8dc07", "slug": "no-matter-how", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/mysteries/no-matter-how", "text": "No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Colin Wilson", "slug": "colin-wilson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson" }, "book": { "title": "Mysteries", "slug": "mysteries", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/mysteries" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 125, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson#Mysteries_(1978)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:22" }, { "id": "12386d17-7d05-44b6-90e0-d5800f1aedfc", "slug": "humanism-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-outsider/humanism-is-only", "text": "Humanism is only another name for spiritual laziness, or a vague half-creed adopted by men of science and logicians whose heads are too occupied with the world of mathematics and physics to worry about religious categories.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Colin Wilson", "slug": "colin-wilson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson" }, "book": { "title": "The Outsider", "slug": "the-outsider", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/colin-wilson/the-outsider" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson#The_Outsider_(1956)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:21" }, { "id": "e9385db3-88c7-412f-bb73-6a5365b7bc4a", "slug": "science-is-better", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice/science-is-better", "text": "Science is better than sympathy, if only it is science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "E.M. Forster", "slug": "em-forster", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster" }, "book": { "title": "Maurice", "slug": "maurice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/maurice" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "empathy", "slug": "empathy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maurice_(novel)#Part_Four", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:37" }, { "id": "eb7a4eed-5417-484f-a66c-35fb03260383", "slug": "this-history-of-civilization", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/this-history-of-civilization", "text": "This history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature' s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life' s machinery or of the world around us ( p. 2).", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "d7d3236e-d656-4f9e-bf04-5cb5207219d1", "slug": "it-is-important", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/it-is-important", "text": "It is important to note that the most brilliant discoveries have not relied on a formal knowledge of logic. Instead, their discoverers have had an acute inner logic that generates ideas with the same unstudied unconsciousness that allowed Jourdain to create prose.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "logic", "slug": "logic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/logic" }, { "name": "intuition", "slug": "intuition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intuition" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "c259d93d-6715-426e-84e8-6767fd109ea7", "slug": "now-and-then", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/now-and-then", "text": "Now and then philosophers invade the field of biological sciences with these beguiling generalizations, which tend to be unproductive, purely verbal solutions lacking in substance. At best, they may prove useful when viewed simply as working hypotheses.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "b369e0b4-1237-4a31-9a76-1a25d29eeb45", "slug": "instead-of-elaborating", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/instead-of-elaborating", "text": "Instead of elaborating on accepted principles, let us simply point out that for the last hundred years the natural sciences have abandoned completely the Aristotelian principles of intuition, inspiration, and dogmatism.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "b170beb4-b316-4261-86f9-6bfd61e55665", "slug": "as-claude-bernard", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/as-claude-bernard", "text": "As Claude Bernard has pointed out, researchers cannot transcend the determinism of phenomena; instead, their mission is limited to demonstrating the how, never the why, of observed changes. This is a modest goal in the eyes of philosophy, yet an imposing challenge in actual practice.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "ad1af6f8-5bbf-4fa1-a0da-52037d9963e0", "slug": "the-severe-constraints", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/the-severe-constraints", "text": "The severe constraints imposed by determinism may appear to limit philosophy in a rather arbitrary way. However, there is no denying that in the natural sciences — and especially in biology — it is a very effective tool for avoiding the innate tendency to explain the universe as a whole in terms of general laws.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "726f8dbb-d9e8-4e86-b8b0-17f7542fcace", "slug": "knowing-the-conditions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/knowing-the-conditions", "text": "Knowing the conditions under which a phenomenon occurs allows us to reproduce or eliminate it at will, therefore allowing us to control and use it for the benefit of humanity. Foresight and action are the advantages we obtain from a deterministic view of phenomena.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "3139748c-4bff-44a9-b27c-d4a7b57a6fac", "slug": "there-is-no-doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/there-is-no-doubt", "text": "There is no doubt that the human mind is fundamentally incapable of solving these formidable problems (the origin of life, nature of matter, origin of movement, and appearance of consciousness). Our brain is an organ of action that is directed toward practical tasks; it does not appear to have been built for discovering the ultimate causes of things, but rather for determining their immediate causes and invariant relationships.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the brain", "slug": "the-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-brain" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "0faf27a3-6fcd-4c4d-852c-ca733b960d4a", "slug": "the-intellect-is-presented", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator/the-intellect-is-presented", "text": "The intellect is presented with phenomena marching in review before the sensory organs. It can be truly useful and productive only when limiting itself to the modest tasks of observation, description, and comparison, and of classification that is based on analogies and differences. A knowledge of underlying causes and empirical laws will then come slowly through the use of inductive methods.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Santiago Ramon Y Cajal", "slug": "santiago-ramon-y-cajal", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal" }, "book": { "title": "Advice for a Young Investigator", "slug": "advice-for-a-young-investigator", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/santiago-ramon-y-cajal/advice-for-a-young-investigator" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Santiago_Ram%C3%B3n_y_Cajal#Advice_for_a_Young_Investigator_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:29" }, { "id": "94f4ec96-d550-42fa-872c-c8f6f7df4ca2", "slug": "she-was-doing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/proxima/she-was-doing", "text": "She was doing well with her schooling, scoring high in mathematics, sciences and deductive abilities, as well as in physical prowess and leadership skills. Her father had been paradoxically pleased when she had been flagged up with a warning about having introvert tendencies. “All great scientists are introverts,” he said. “All great engineers too, come to that. The sign of a strong, independent mind.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Proxima", "slug": "proxima", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/proxima" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 22, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Proxima_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:25" }, { "id": "c0b085e8-de72-421e-8420-9bc92c78df83", "slug": "what-makes-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/evolution/what-makes-you", "text": "What makes you think anybody with power will listen to a bunch of scientists? They never have before.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/evolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 513, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Evolution_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:24" }, { "id": "b9049c92-69e3-424c-a735-9855602bfbe0", "slug": "but-you-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/timelike-infinity/but-you-are", "text": "But you are a scientist, Michael Poole; and the skill of a scientist is in asking the right question.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Timelike Infinity", "slug": "timelike-infinity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/timelike-infinity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 218, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Timelike_Infinity_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:23" }, { "id": "b7b92480-aa71-4198-be4c-a96973e6e68f", "slug": "the-secret-of-a-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/raft/the-secret-of-a-scientist", "text": "The secret of a Scientist is not what he knows. It’s what he asks.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Baxter", "slug": "stephen-baxter", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter" }, "book": { "title": "Raft", "slug": "raft", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-baxter/raft" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 45, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Baxter#Raft_(1991)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:22" }, { "id": "eeb1e390-14e9-4e1e-9030-93c99f84ef00", "slug": "sex-cannot-be-understood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae/sex-cannot-be-understood", "text": "Sex cannot be understood because nature cannot be understood. Science is a method of logical analysis of nature’s operations. It has lessened human anxiety about the cosmos by demonstrating the materiality of nature’s forces, and their frequent predictability. But science is always playing catch-up ball. Nature breaks its own rules whenever it wants. Science cannot avert a single thunderbolt. Western science is a product of the Apollonian mind: its hope is that by naming and classification, by the cold light of intellect, archaic night can be pushed back and defeated.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Camille Paglia", "slug": "camille-paglia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia" }, "book": { "title": "Sexual Personae", "slug": "sexual-personae", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/camille-paglia/sexual-personae" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 5, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "sex", "slug": "sex", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sex" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Camille_Paglia#Sexual_Personae:_Art_and_Decadence_from_Nefertiti_to_Emily_Dickinson_(1990)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:16" }, { "id": "3eab5161-5539-4c04-81fb-03f78d3b098d", "slug": "the-best-military", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg/dreams-of-a-final-theory/the-best-military", "text": "The best military historians in fact do recognize the difficulty in stating rules of generalship. They do not speak of a science of war, but rather of a pattern of military behavior that cannot be taught or stated precisely but that somehow or other sometimes helps in winning battles. This is called the art of war. In the same spirit I think that one should not hope for a science of science, the formulation of any definite rules about how scientists do or ought to behave, but only aim at a description of the sort of behavior that historically has led to scientific progress—an art of science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Weinberg", "slug": "steven-weinberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg" }, "book": { "title": "Dreams Of A Final Theory", "slug": "dreams-of-a-final-theory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg/dreams-of-a-final-theory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg#Dreams_of_a_Final_Theory_(1992%3B_2nd_edition_1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:12" }, { "id": "08f7ce01-4be9-4860-9afd-ec629b90518d", "slug": "it-is-with", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg/dreams-of-a-final-theory/it-is-with", "text": "It is with Isaac Newton that the modern dream of a final theory really begins.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Weinberg", "slug": "steven-weinberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg" }, "book": { "title": "Dreams Of A Final Theory", "slug": "dreams-of-a-final-theory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-weinberg/dreams-of-a-final-theory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 11, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg#Dreams_of_a_Final_Theory_(1992%3B_2nd_edition_1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:12" }, { "id": "dd923b39-c64d-4ce6-9432-a993c15ae358", "slug": "mystics-understand-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics/mystics-understand-the", "text": "Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Tao of Physics", "slug": "the-tao-of-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 306, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mysticism", "slug": "mysticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mysticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Tao_of_Physics_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "d12d60ad-5667-4533-a782-178f3bc889ed", "slug": "both-the-physicist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics/both-the-physicist", "text": "Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Tao of Physics", "slug": "the-tao-of-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 46, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mysticism", "slug": "mysticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mysticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Tao_of_Physics_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "c6c0559c-04ae-433c-b8c6-1687ebdd5664", "slug": "the-influence-of-modern", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics/the-influence-of-modern", "text": "The influence of modern physics goes beyond technology. It extends to the realm of thought and culture where it has led to a deep revision in man's conception of the universe and his relation to it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Tao of Physics", "slug": "the-tao-of-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 17, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Tao_of_Physics_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "c22170b5-4903-41d7-bb57-b462fcc2a685", "slug": "a-page-from", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics/a-page-from", "text": "A page from a journal of modern experimental physics will be as mysterious to the uninitiated as a Tibetan mandala. Both are records of enquiries into the nature of the universe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Tao of Physics", "slug": "the-tao-of-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 36, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mysticism", "slug": "mysticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mysticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Tao_of_Physics_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "a2bbac08-b24a-4639-9e90-dced0e47eff6", "slug": "while-the-new", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-turning-point/while-the-new", "text": "While the new physics was developing in the 20th century, the mechanistic Cartesian world view and the principles of Newtonian physics maintained their strong influence on Western scientific thinking, and even today many scientists still hold to the mechanistic paradigm, although physicists themselves have gone beyond it.\n\nHowever, the new conception of the universe that has emerged from modern physics does not mean that Newtonian physics is wrong, or that quantum theory, or relativity theory, is right. Modern science has come to realize that all scientific theories are approximations to the true nature of reality; and that each theory is valid for a certain range of phenomena.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Turning Point", "slug": "the-turning-point", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-turning-point" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 93, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Turning_Point_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "9c55269d-7cd1-4ff5-8bfb-56de43c5dca1", "slug": "if-physics-leads", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics/if-physics-leads", "text": "If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago. [...] This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fritjof Capra", "slug": "fritjof-capra", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra" }, "book": { "title": "The Tao of Physics", "slug": "the-tao-of-physics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fritjof-capra/the-tao-of-physics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 19, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mysticism", "slug": "mysticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mysticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fritjof_Capra#The_Tao_of_Physics_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:49:03" }, { "id": "7d3e8170-c48c-47f8-b75b-d398040f1af0", "slug": "one-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-e-stiglitz/making-globalization-work/one-of-the", "text": "One of the reasons that basic research is advanced most by not resorting to intellectual property is that while doing so would have questionable benefits, the costs are apparent. [...] Interestingly, even in software, this system of open collaboration has worked. Today we have the Linux computer operating system, which is also based on the principle of open architecture.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Joseph E. Stiglitz", "slug": "joseph-e-stiglitz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-e-stiglitz" }, "book": { "title": "Making Globalization Work", "slug": "making-globalization-work", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-e-stiglitz/making-globalization-work" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 112, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz#Making_globalization_work_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:50" }, { "id": "53895f33-6207-4a92-9102-80cca2600c20", "slug": "warlocks-and-witches", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-city-in-the-autumn-stars/warlocks-and-witches", "text": "Warlocks and witches debate to determine how to make their broomsticks fly again. But how shall they ever come together in strength? Even if your ideas had any truth, they’re so frequently, by their very character, at odds. Each claims to hold the key to the only wisdom. That’s where natural philosophers, who do not impose what they need to believe (or at least not so readily!) upon the world, but analyze what they see, have the strong advantage.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Moorcock", "slug": "michael-moorcock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock" }, "book": { "title": "The City in the Autumn Stars", "slug": "the-city-in-the-autumn-stars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-city-in-the-autumn-stars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 310, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_City_in_the_Autumn_Stars_(1986)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:45" }, { "id": "2bffdf1b-11dd-4b28-bd76-1686d1569f22", "slug": "you-have-no-proof", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-land-leviathan/you-have-no-proof", "text": "“You have no proof of this,” I said.\n\n“No. But a theory must be tested to be disproved, Mr Bastable.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Moorcock", "slug": "michael-moorcock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock" }, "book": { "title": "The Land Leviathan", "slug": "the-land-leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-land-leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 233, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_Land_Leviathan_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:43" }, { "id": "f4a90b5f-ac9f-4038-9deb-f7b5bc59a603", "slug": "how-will-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-king-of-the-swords/how-will-the", "text": "“How will the doctor fare?” Corum called. “The one who took me in.”\n\n“He will die unless he is clever and denounces you,” Jhary told him.\n\n“But he was a man of great intelligence and humanity. A man of science, too—of learning.”\n\n“All the more reason for killing him, if their priesthood has its way. Superstition, not learning, is respected here.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Moorcock", "slug": "michael-moorcock", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock" }, "book": { "title": "The King of the Swords", "slug": "the-king-of-the-swords", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-moorcock/the-king-of-the-swords" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 335, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock#The_King_of_the_Swords_(1971)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:41" }, { "id": "d91c11fe-a11e-4e43-b773-a7b223ae1bf2", "slug": "all-good-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin/all-good-science", "text": "All good science is art. And all good art is science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Fowles", "slug": "john-fowles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles" }, "book": { "title": "Daniel Martin", "slug": "daniel-martin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-fowles/daniel-martin" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Fowles#Daniel_Martin_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:31" }, { "id": "1ac6ecb5-10ba-4705-b369-4a736442eb6a", "slug": "religion-and-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-citadel-of-the-autarch/religion-and-science", "text": "Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something. You are yourself what you call a man of science, so I talk of science to you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gene Wolfe", "slug": "gene-wolfe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe" }, "book": { "title": "The Citadel of the Autarch", "slug": "the-citadel-of-the-autarch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-citadel-of-the-autarch" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun#The_Citadel_of_the_Autarch_(1983)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:25" }, { "id": "9a7b30bb-49f5-475b-baa2-0b28bc39ae4f", "slug": "the-progress-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-sword-of-the-lictor/the-progress-of-science", "text": "The progress of science depends much less upon theoretical considerations or systematic investigation than is commonly believed, but rather on the transmittal of reliable information, gained by chance or insight from one set of men to their successors. The nature of those who hunt after dark knowledge is to hoard it even unto death, or to transmit it so wrapped in disguise and beclouded with self-serving lies that it is of little value.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gene Wolfe", "slug": "gene-wolfe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe" }, "book": { "title": "The Sword of the Lictor", "slug": "the-sword-of-the-lictor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gene-wolfe/the-sword-of-the-lictor" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun#The_Sword_of_the_Lictor_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:24" }, { "id": "c973176e-3c4c-4664-9dac-0e26560273f9", "slug": "in-each-century", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden/in-each-century", "text": "In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frances Hodgson Burnett", "slug": "frances-hodgson-burnett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett" }, "book": { "title": "The Secret Garden", "slug": "the-secret-garden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frances_Hodgson_Burnett#The_Secret_Garden_(1911)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:09" }, { "id": "8c437e0a-6f5a-4413-8176-8439af718f58", "slug": "then-something-began", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden/then-something-began", "text": "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren’t there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, ’What is it? What is it?’ It’s something. It can’t be nothing!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frances Hodgson Burnett", "slug": "frances-hodgson-burnett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett" }, "book": { "title": "The Secret Garden", "slug": "the-secret-garden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frances-hodgson-burnett/the-secret-garden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frances_Hodgson_Burnett#The_Secret_Garden_(1911)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:09" }, { "id": "112f084e-c4f5-4a97-92f2-7805d3bc2e34", "slug": "ifs-and-buts", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fred-hoyle/the-black-cloud/ifs-and-buts", "text": "Ifs and buts are the stuff of politics, Mr. Parkinson. As a scientist I am concerned with facts not with motives, suspicions, and airy-fairy nothingness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Fred Hoyle", "slug": "fred-hoyle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fred-hoyle" }, "book": { "title": "The Black Cloud", "slug": "the-black-cloud", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/fred-hoyle/the-black-cloud" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 70, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "politics", "slug": "politics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle#The_Black_Cloud_(1957)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:08" }, { "id": "d3555871-5e5a-42fb-84e7-20a7e0e97ba0", "slug": "this-new-quantum", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/oliver-sacks/uncle-tungsten/this-new-quantum", "text": "This new quantum mechanics promised to explain all of chemistry. And though I felt an exuberance at this, I felt a certain threat, too. “Chemistry,” wrote Crookes, “will be established upon an entirely new basis…. We shall be set free from the need for experiment, knowing a priori what the result of each and every experiment must be.” I was not sure I liked the sound of this. Did this mean that chemists of the future (if they existed) would never actually need to handle a chemical; might never see the colors of vanadium salts, never smell a hydrogen selenide, never admire the form of a crystal; might live in a colorless, scentless, mathematical world? This, for me, seemed and awful prospect, for I, at least, needed to smell and touch and feel, to place myself, my senses, in the middle of the perceptual world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Oliver Sacks", "slug": "oliver-sacks", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/oliver-sacks" }, "book": { "title": "Uncle Tungsten", "slug": "uncle-tungsten", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/oliver-sacks/uncle-tungsten" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 312, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Sacks#Uncle_Tungsten_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "b949532f-52d1-4212-aaa0-ff18fe495a97", "slug": "the-physicist-may", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/the-physicist-may", "text": "The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "language", "slug": "language", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "a90f3d2b-bd50-48a9-ae86-719872a4d1e1", "slug": "the-existing-scientific", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/the-existing-scientific", "text": "The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "527db84b-cb9f-4e6e-82df-f970e460c2c3", "slug": "we-have-to-remember", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/we-have-to-remember", "text": "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "4c256059-a039-4e6c-9cc7-c996e7073ac8", "slug": "there-is-an-enormous", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/there-is-an-enormous", "text": "There is an enormous difference between modern science and Greek philosophy, and that is just the empiristic attitude... Since the time of Galileo and Newton, modern science has been based upon a detailed study of nature and upon the postulate that only such statements should be made, as have been verified or at least can be verified by experiment. The idea that one can single out some events from nature by an experiment... to find out what is the constant law in the continuous change, did not occur to the Greek philosophers. Therefore, modern science has from its beginning stood on a much more modest, but at the same time much firmer, basis than ancient philosophy. Therefore, the statements of modern physics are in some way meant much more seriously than the statements of Greek philosophy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "46347026-1a5b-4b79-b9dd-4910b7a29787", "slug": "e-ven-in-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/e-ven-in-the", "text": "[E]ven in the most precise part of science, in mathematics, we cannot avoid using concepts that involve contradictions. ...[I]t is well known that the concept of infinity leads to contradictions... but it would be practically impossible to construct... mathematics without this concept.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "14a72db8-4afb-47d4-9529-ca1363fbff69", "slug": "i-remember-discussions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/i-remember-discussions", "text": "I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "absurdity", "slug": "absurdity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/absurdity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "0f96defe-708b-4fd6-bba9-67df7e0090ac", "slug": "whenever-we-proceed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/whenever-we-proceed", "text": "Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word \"understanding.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "0902da31-7c0e-4254-a017-e15b74a9a355", "slug": "i-n-the-copenhagen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy/i-n-the-copenhagen", "text": "[I]n the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory we can indeed proceed without mentioning ourselves as individuals, but we cannot disregard the fact that natural science is formed by men. Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed to our nature of questioning. This was a possibility of which Descartes could not have thought, but it makes a sharp separation between the world and the I impossible.\n\nIf one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding and accepting the Copenhagen interpretation... one can trace the roots... to the Cartesian partition....it will take a long time for it [this partition] to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Werner Heisenberg", "slug": "werner-heisenberg", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg" }, "book": { "title": "Physics and Philosophy", "slug": "physics-and-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/werner-heisenberg/physics-and-philosophy" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#Physics_and_Philosophy_(1958)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:48:06" }, { "id": "b0f7b0dc-8719-4ad3-b1db-1acf26350317", "slug": "it-was-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-f-hamilton/misspent-youth/it-was-the", "text": "It was the sort of review board that Jeff thoroughly disapproved of; hands-on bureaucratic interference in university and agency programs always lead to pure science being impoverished.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter F. Hamilton", "slug": "peter-f-hamilton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-f-hamilton" }, "book": { "title": "Misspent Youth", "slug": "misspent-youth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-f-hamilton/misspent-youth" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 152, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "bureaucracy", "slug": "bureaucracy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/bureaucracy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_F._Hamilton#Misspent_Youth_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:56" }, { "id": "c1679cb2-6b27-4a5c-8aa7-d2bde3cb42ba", "slug": "to-science-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-jacobs/dark-age-ahead/to-science-not", "text": "To science, not even the bark of a tree or a drop of pond water is dull or a handful of dirt banal. They all arouse awe and wonder.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jane Jacobs", "slug": "jane-jacobs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-jacobs" }, "book": { "title": "Dark Age Ahead", "slug": "dark-age-ahead", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-jacobs/dark-age-ahead" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#Dark_Age_Ahead_(2004)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:48" }, { "id": "4f1d0508-b482-4dc7-a3a0-3d5f4c1fee09", "slug": "anthropology-is-never", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead/anthropology-is-never", "text": "Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Orson Scott Card", "slug": "orson-scott-card", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card" }, "book": { "title": "Speaker for the Dead", "slug": "speaker-for-the-dead", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/orson-scott-card/speaker-for-the-dead" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "culture", "slug": "culture", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/culture" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Speaker_for_the_Dead#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:43" }, { "id": "f15b56dc-50c3-43d6-b1d7-8fc1605fec36", "slug": "the-precarious-ontological", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-precarious-ontological", "text": "The precarious ontological link between Logos and Eros is broken, and scientific rationality emerges as essentially neutral.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Herbert Marcuse", "slug": "herbert-marcuse", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse" }, "book": { "title": "One-Dimensional Man", "slug": "one-dimensional-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 147, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Marcuse#One-Dimensional_Man_(1964)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:39" }, { "id": "a51a672c-28bd-4130-bc46-3f566440cd74", "slug": "the-philosopher-subjects", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man/the-philosopher-subjects", "text": "The philosopher … subjects experience to his critical judgment, and this contains a value judgment — namely, that freedom from toil is preferable to toil, and an intelligent life is preferable to a stupid life. It so happened that philosophy was born with these values. Scientific thought had to break this union of value judgment and analysis, for it became increasingly clear that the philosophic values did not guide the organisation of society.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Herbert Marcuse", "slug": "herbert-marcuse", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse" }, "book": { "title": "One-Dimensional Man", "slug": "one-dimensional-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herbert-marcuse/one-dimensional-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 126, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Herbert_Marcuse#One-Dimensional_Man_(1964)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:39" }, { "id": "f7d3be52-7909-4c0f-932b-c9d38425cb9e", "slug": "we-give-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/maria-montessori/montessori-method/we-give-the", "text": "We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. The scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the follower of some religious order. To this body of real scientists belong those who, forgetting, like the Trappists of the Middle Ages, the world about them, live only in the laboratory, careless often in matters of food and dress because they no longer think of themselves; those who, through years of unwearied use of the microscope, become blind; those who in their scientific ardour inoculate themselves with tuberculosis germs; those who handle the excrement of cholera patients in their eagerness to learn the vehicle through which the diseases are transmitted; and those who, knowing that a certain chemical preparation may be an explosive, still persist in testing their theories at the risk of their lives. This is the spirit of the men of science, to whom nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labours with the glory of discovery.\n\nThere exists, then, the \"spirit\" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere \"mechanical skill,\" and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Maria Montessori", "slug": "maria-montessori", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/maria-montessori" }, "book": { "title": "Montessori Method", "slug": "montessori-method", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/maria-montessori/montessori-method" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 8, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion-2", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion-2" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori#The_Montessori_Method_(1912)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:30" }, { "id": "4d2e9a0c-9d9e-4fc7-aa1f-fcab4e15fc80", "slug": "the-ordinary-citizen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold/a-sand-county-almanac/the-ordinary-citizen", "text": "The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldo Leopold", "slug": "aldo-leopold", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold" }, "book": { "title": "A Sand County Almanac", "slug": "a-sand-county-almanac", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold/a-sand-county-almanac" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 205, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold#%22The_Land_Ethic%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:21" }, { "id": "2f16d837-e7cf-4b6d-ab9a-1c63077c472c", "slug": "science-contributes-moral", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold/a-sand-county-almanac/science-contributes-moral", "text": "Science contributes moral as well as material blessings to the world. Its great moral contribution is objectivity, or the scientific point of view. This means doubting everything except facts; it means hewing to the facts, let the chips fall where they may.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldo Leopold", "slug": "aldo-leopold", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold" }, "book": { "title": "A Sand County Almanac", "slug": "a-sand-county-almanac", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldo-leopold/a-sand-county-almanac" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 153, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold#%22Chihuahua_and_Sonora:_The_Green_Lagoons%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:21" }, { "id": "d7964872-bd47-46e7-8d19-df09a76ebf20", "slug": "when-there-is-genuine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience/when-there-is-genuine", "text": "When there is genuine artistry in scientific inquiry and philosophic speculation, a thinker proceeds neither by rule nor yet blindly, but by means of meaning that exist immediately as feelings having qualitative color.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Dewey", "slug": "john-dewey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey" }, "book": { "title": "Art as Experience", "slug": "art-as-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-dewey/art-as-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dewey#Art_as_Experience_(1934)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:47:06" }, { "id": "db19daa2-abcc-4cdc-a324-7cbfc59ae781", "slug": "mede-spoke-with", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-winds-twelve-quarters/mede-spoke-with", "text": "Mede spoke with amused tolerance, as physicists generally speak of biologists.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ursula K. Le Guin", "slug": "ursula-k-le-guin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin" }, "book": { "title": "The Wind’s Twelve Quarters", "slug": "the-winds-twelve-quarters", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ursula-k-le-guin/the-winds-twelve-quarters" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 46, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin#The_Wind%E2%80%99s_Twelve_Quarters_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:50" }, { "id": "f7b1ace4-ba06-4702-bab9-7a961f181f9b", "slug": "philosophers-used-to-ask", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory/philosophers-used-to-ask", "text": "Philosophers used to ask whether we are born with or invent our sense of time. Now we know that we have clocks woven into every one of our cells. Philosophers also used to ask how we know that the sun will rise tomorrow. In a sense we have that answer built into us, too. The clock is a kind of orrery in the heart of every one of our cells, revolving to help us keep time with our world, a model of the cosmos inside our heads that cycles whether we are in or out of sight of the sun. The revolution of the stars and the seasons is written in the turns of our DNA.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Weiner", "slug": "jonathan-weiner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner" }, "book": { "title": "Time, Love, Memory", "slug": "time-love-memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 193, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Weiner#Time,_Love,_Memory:_A_Great_Biologist_and_His_Quest_for_the_Origins_of_Behavior_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:41" }, { "id": "c1f2a29b-02c6-46a7-a3ce-c35cc023be62", "slug": "people-who-dont", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory/people-who-dont", "text": "People who don’t believe in relativity don’t understand relativity. People who don’t believe in evolution don’t understand evolution. And it’s the same with genetics. And I think some people are just reluctant to let their imaginations run.\n\nMy feeling is that molecular biologists are going to move into psychology and take over the field. I think that’s the way psychology is going to be rejuvenated.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Weiner", "slug": "jonathan-weiner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner" }, "book": { "title": "Time, Love, Memory", "slug": "time-love-memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 243, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Weiner#Time,_Love,_Memory:_A_Great_Biologist_and_His_Quest_for_the_Origins_of_Behavior_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:41" }, { "id": "253e10b7-20f2-47be-ad61-2c5206ceeeca", "slug": "molecular-biology-has", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory/molecular-biology-has", "text": "“Molecular biology has no history for the young scientist,” one of the old guard declared not long ago.\n\nSydney Brenner qualified that: “I hold the somewhat weaker view that history does exist for the young, but is divided into two epochs: the past two years, and everything that went before.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Weiner", "slug": "jonathan-weiner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner" }, "book": { "title": "Time, Love, Memory", "slug": "time-love-memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 241, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Weiner#Time,_Love,_Memory:_A_Great_Biologist_and_His_Quest_for_the_Origins_of_Behavior_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:41" }, { "id": "ebdad735-06b5-4b63-afd1-b592a3a76541", "slug": "all-three-spoke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory/all-three-spoke", "text": "All three spoke in the kind of down-home, common-as-flies style that is the lingua franca of great scientists, conveying a contempt for pretension, a contempt for cant, a delight in common sense, combined with uncommon curiosity about what is really there.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jonathan Weiner", "slug": "jonathan-weiner", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner" }, "book": { "title": "Time, Love, Memory", "slug": "time-love-memory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jonathan-weiner/time-love-memory" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 24, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jonathan_Weiner#Time,_Love,_Memory:_A_Great_Biologist_and_His_Quest_for_the_Origins_of_Behavior_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:40" }, { "id": "60a70d2f-3e5e-4587-8222-8493fd4321b2", "slug": "as-was-demonstrated", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone/the-dialectic-of-sex-the-case-for-feminist-revolution/as-was-demonstrated", "text": "As was demonstrated in the case of the development of atomic energy, radicals, rather than breast-beating about the immorality of scientific research, could be much more effective by concentrating their full energies on demands for control of scientific discoveries by and for the people. For, like atomic energy, fertility control, artificial reproduction, cybernation, in themselves, are liberating – unless they are improperly used.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Shulamith Firestone", "slug": "shulamith-firestone", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone" }, "book": { "title": "The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution", "slug": "the-dialectic-of-sex-the-case-for-feminist-revolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/shulamith-firestone/the-dialectic-of-sex-the-case-for-feminist-revolution" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 196, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shulamith_Firestone#Chapter_Ten", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:39" }, { "id": "517c05df-71e8-4724-977b-6e8e294e19a3", "slug": "thousands-of-writers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin/the-conquest-of-bread/thousands-of-writers", "text": "Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter Kropotkin", "slug": "peter-kropotkin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin" }, "book": { "title": "The Conquest of Bread", "slug": "the-conquest-of-bread", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-kropotkin/the-conquest-of-bread" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 57, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin#The_Conquest_of_Bread_(1892)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:37" }, { "id": "42751957-b4cb-4a4b-b7bb-60f423d9f89d", "slug": "your-brain-is-marvellously", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/the-body/your-brain-is-marvellously", "text": "Your brain is marvellously efficient. It requires only about 400 calories of energy a day — about the same as you get in a blueberry muffin. Try running your laptop for 24 hours on a muffin and see how far you get.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bill Bryson", "slug": "bill-bryson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson" }, "book": { "title": "The Body", "slug": "the-body", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/the-body" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson#The_Body_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:37" }, { "id": "e21e2498-36a0-4942-ae4c-973d9469c2c0", "slug": "in-france-a-chemist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything/in-france-a-chemist", "text": "In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bill Bryson", "slug": "bill-bryson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson" }, "book": { "title": "A Short History of Nearly Everything", "slug": "a-short-history-of-nearly-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 53, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson#A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:36" }, { "id": "214774e2-f75c-4aa7-a702-46db8e07eca6", "slug": "it-is-a-slightly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything/it-is-a-slightly", "text": "It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bill Bryson", "slug": "bill-bryson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson" }, "book": { "title": "A Short History of Nearly Everything", "slug": "a-short-history-of-nearly-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-bryson/a-short-history-of-nearly-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson#A_Short_History_of_Nearly_Everything_(2003)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:36" }, { "id": "d7f54b23-48ff-44ed-a553-6df54ddfa7b5", "slug": "remarkably-only-a-handful", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace/remarkably-only-a-handful", "text": "Remarkably, only a handful of fundamental physical principles are sufficient to summarize most of modern physics.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michio Kaku", "slug": "michio-kaku", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku" }, "book": { "title": "Hyperspace", "slug": "hyperspace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 328, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Hyperspace_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:34" }, { "id": "b7c004b7-79ba-4726-914a-ea7efe93edc5", "slug": "there-are-many", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace/there-are-many", "text": "There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of foolish but well-connected scientists. … Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment exposed their incorrectness. .. Thus the yeoman work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michio Kaku", "slug": "michio-kaku", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku" }, "book": { "title": "Hyperspace", "slug": "hyperspace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Hyperspace_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:34" }, { "id": "adefd4cc-0cf0-4468-b538-1204dc0dde6a", "slug": "it-is-sometimes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace/it-is-sometimes", "text": "It is sometimes helpful to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order. When scientists use the word God, they usually mean the God of Order. ...The God of Miracles intervenes in our affairs, performs miracles, destroys wicked cities, smites enemy armies, drowns the Pharaoh's troops, and avenges the pure and noble. ...This is not to say that miracles cannot happen, only that they are outside what is commonly called science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michio Kaku", "slug": "michio-kaku", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku" }, "book": { "title": "Hyperspace", "slug": "hyperspace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 330, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "miracles", "slug": "miracles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/miracles" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Hyperspace_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:34" }, { "id": "93685c17-6a5e-4ee8-aafc-a9965093368e", "slug": "when-physicists-speak", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace/when-physicists-speak", "text": "When Physicists speak of \"beauty\" in their theories, they really mean that their theory possesses at least two essential features: 1. A unifying symmetry 2. The ability to explain vast amounts of experimental data with the most economical mathematical expressions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michio Kaku", "slug": "michio-kaku", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku" }, "book": { "title": "Hyperspace", "slug": "hyperspace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Hyperspace_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:34" }, { "id": "611adac9-bc47-49de-bb88-466b7aeb7e55", "slug": "it-is-often", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace/it-is-often", "text": "It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michio Kaku", "slug": "michio-kaku", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku" }, "book": { "title": "Hyperspace", "slug": "hyperspace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michio-kaku/hyperspace" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 262, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku#Hyperspace_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:34" }, { "id": "d4dfd2ee-5589-431e-8a17-90d7ad154022", "slug": "sandro-was-surprised", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table/sandro-was-surprised", "text": "Sandro was surprised when I tried to explain to him some of the ideas that at the time I was confusedly cultivating. That the nobility of man, acquired in a hundred centuries of trial and error, lay in making himself the conquerer of matter, and that I had enrolled in chemistry because I wanted to remain faithful to this nobility. That conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that therefore Mendeleev's Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were laboriously learning to unravel, was poetry, loftier and more solemn than all the poetry we had swallowed down in liceo; and come to think of it, it even rhymed!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Primo Levi", "slug": "primo-levi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi" }, "book": { "title": "The Periodic Table", "slug": "the-periodic-table", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "poetry", "slug": "poetry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi#The_Periodic_Table_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:33" }, { "id": "bd6bc044-5be1-4233-818d-546e45154a31", "slug": "distilling-is-beautiful", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table/distilling-is-beautiful", "text": "Distilling is beautiful. First of all because it is a slow, philosophic, and silent occupation, which keeps you busy but gives you time to think of other things, somewhat like riding a bike. Then, because it involves a metamorphosis from liquid to vapor (invisible), and from this once again to liquid; but in this double journey, up and down, purity is obtained, an ambiguous and fascinating condition, which starts with chemistry and goes very far. And finally, when you set about distilling, you acquire the consciousness of repeating a ritual consecrated by the centuries, almost a religious act, in which from imperfect material you obtain the essence, the ussia, the spirit, and in the first place alcohol, which gladdens the spirit and warms the heart.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Primo Levi", "slug": "primo-levi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi" }, "book": { "title": "The Periodic Table", "slug": "the-periodic-table", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi#The_Periodic_Table_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:33" }, { "id": "9e3dbe12-289a-42da-8490-58be3789ffc1", "slug": "it-is-a-pretty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table/it-is-a-pretty", "text": "It is a pretty structure isn’t it? It makes you think of something solid, stable, well-linked. In fact it happens also in chemistry as in architecture that “beautiful” edifices, that is, symmetrical and simple, are also the most sturdy: in short, the same thing happens with molecules as with the cupolas of cathedrals of the arches of bridges.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Primo Levi", "slug": "primo-levi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi" }, "book": { "title": "The Periodic Table", "slug": "the-periodic-table", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi#The_Periodic_Table_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:33" }, { "id": "5d4f5b0a-a725-43cc-9d4e-bb353ce0e930", "slug": "for-me-chemistry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table/for-me-chemistry", "text": "For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I was fed up with books, which I still continued to gulp down with indiscreet voracity, and searched for a key to the highest truths; there must be a key, and I was certain that, owing to some monstrous conspiracy to my detriment and the world's, I would not get in school. In school they loaded with me with tons of notions that I diligently digested, but which did not warm the blood in my veins. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: \"I will understand this, too, I will understand everything, but not the way they want me to. I will find a shortcut, I will make a lock-pick, I will push open the doors.\"\n\nIt was enervating, nauseating, to listen to lectures on the problem of being and knowing, when everything around us was a mystery pressing to be revealed: the old wood of the benches, the sun's sphere beyond the windowpanes and the roofs, the vain flight of the pappus down in the June air. Would all the philosophers and all the armies of the world be able to construct this little fly? No, nor even understand it: this was a shame and an abomination, another road must be found.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Primo Levi", "slug": "primo-levi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi" }, "book": { "title": "The Periodic Table", "slug": "the-periodic-table", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi#The_Periodic_Table_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:33" }, { "id": "21f47009-f048-4fd9-a54e-8f9f898a920b", "slug": "the-trade-of-chemist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table/the-trade-of-chemist", "text": "The trade of chemist (fortified, in my case, by the experience of Auschwitz), teaches you to overcome, indeed to ignore, certain revulsions that are neither necessary or congenital: matter is matter, neither noble nor vile, infinitely transformable, and its proximate origin is of no importance whatsoever. Nitrogen is nitrogen, it passes miraculously from the air into plants, from these into animals, and from animals into us; when its function in our body is exhausted, we eliminate it, but it still remains nitrogen, aseptic, innocent.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Primo Levi", "slug": "primo-levi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi" }, "book": { "title": "The Periodic Table", "slug": "the-periodic-table", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/primo-levi/the-periodic-table" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Primo_Levi#The_Periodic_Table_(1975)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:33" }, { "id": "f60ea845-8b2b-4acf-b329-1db7fe6e4670", "slug": "im-afraid-i-cant", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/im-afraid-i-cant", "text": "\"I'm afraid I can't comment on the name Rain God at this present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-Causal Meteorological Phenomenon.\"\n\n\"Can you tell us what that means?\"\n\n\"I'm not altogether sure. Let's be straight here. If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don't and I'm afraid we couldn't have that.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Douglas Adams", "slug": "douglas-adams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams" }, "book": { "title": "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", "slug": "so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "language", "slug": "language", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/language" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Chapter_33", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:28" }, { "id": "eefc4aeb-f513-417c-88e6-bef177d62830", "slug": "s-uch-generators-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-primary-phase/s-uch-generators-were", "text": "[S]uch generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the Theory of Indeterminacy. Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Douglas Adams", "slug": "douglas-adams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams" }, "book": { "title": "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Primary Phase", "slug": "the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-primary-phase", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-primary-phase" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Chapter_10", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:25" }, { "id": "33dc2d9d-9dd5-4192-8b89-1284317c2cf6", "slug": "reductionism-ultimately-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle/reductionism-ultimately-the", "text": "Reductionism (ultimately, the empirical explanability of everything and a cornerstone of science), has uses that are appropriate, and it also can be used inappropriately. It is appropriately used as a way (one way) of understanding what is empirically known or empirically knowable. When it becomes merely an intellectual \"position\" confronting what is not empirically known or knowable, then it becomes very quickly absurd, and also grossly desensitizing and false.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Wendell Berry", "slug": "wendell-berry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry" }, "book": { "title": "Life Is a Miracle", "slug": "life-is-a-miracle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/wendell-berry/life-is-a-miracle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry#Life_Is_A_Miracle_:_An_Essay_Against_Modern_Superstition_(2000)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:22" }, { "id": "81a8f375-436f-4c6c-942f-8d824a4b0199", "slug": "you-have-curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith/you-have-curiosity", "text": "You have curiosity and you are stubborn. You do not accept rules. Therefore I t'ink you will either make a very good scientist or a very bad one, and if you are bad enough, you will be popular with the rich ladies who rule this city, New York, and you can gif lectures for a living or even become, if you get to be plausible enough, a college president. So anyvay, it will be interesting. ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sinclair Lewis", "slug": "sinclair-lewis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis" }, "book": { "title": "Arrowsmith", "slug": "arrowsmith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis#Arrowsmith_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:01" }, { "id": "58a6f2bf-02d3-46d4-aedb-22e570894dbe", "slug": "gentlemen-the-most", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith/gentlemen-the-most", "text": "Gentlemen, the most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it. And the most important part of experimentation is not doing the experiment but making notes, ve-ry accurate quantitative notes — in ink. I am told that a great many clever people feel they can keep notes in their heads. I have often observed with pleasure that such persons do not have heads in which to keep their notes. This iss very good, because thus the world never sees their results and science is not encumbered with them. ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 4", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sinclair Lewis", "slug": "sinclair-lewis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis" }, "book": { "title": "Arrowsmith", "slug": "arrowsmith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis#Arrowsmith_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:01" }, { "id": "44ee0b84-072d-4349-b6b8-12dfdb53bc2e", "slug": "he-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith/he-is-the", "text": "He is the only real revolutionary, the authentic scientist, because he alone knows how liddle he knows.\n\nHe must be heartless. He lives in a cold, clear light. Yet dis is a funny t'ing: really, in private, he is not cold nor heartless—so much less cold than the Professional Optimists. ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sinclair Lewis", "slug": "sinclair-lewis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis" }, "book": { "title": "Arrowsmith", "slug": "arrowsmith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis#Arrowsmith_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:01" }, { "id": "1b5b016f-1f92-4f80-98c9-5d20e20682e9", "slug": "perhaps-i-am-a-crank", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith/perhaps-i-am-a-crank", "text": "Perhaps I am a crank, Martin. There are many who hate me. There are plots against me—oh, you t'ink I imagine it, but you shall see! I make many mistakes. But one thing I keep always pure: the religion of a scientist.\n\nTo be a scientist—it is not just a different job, so that a man should choose between being a scientist and being an explorer or a bond-salesman or a physician or a king or a farmer. It is a tangle of ver-y obscure emotions, like mysticism, or wanting to write poetry; it makes its victim all different from the good normal man. The normal man, he does not care much what he does except that he should eat and sleep and make love. But the scientist is intensely religious—he is so religious that he will not accept quarter-truths, because they are an insult to his faith.\n\nHe wants that everything should be subject to inexorable laws. He is equal opposed to the capitalists who t'ink their silly money-grabbing is a system, and to liberals who t'ink man is not a fighting animal; he takes both the American booster and the European aristocrat, and he ignores all their blithering. Ignores it! All of it! He hates the preachers who talk their fables, but he iss not too kindly to the anthropologists and historians who can only make guesses, yet they have the nerf to call themselves scientists! Oh, yes, he is a man that all nice good-natured people should naturally hate! ~ Gottlieb, Ch. 26", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Sinclair Lewis", "slug": "sinclair-lewis", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis" }, "book": { "title": "Arrowsmith", "slug": "arrowsmith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/sinclair-lewis/arrowsmith" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sinclair_Lewis#Arrowsmith_(1925)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:46:01" }, { "id": "60007e15-19f6-44c3-93e7-2c34f8f2515d", "slug": "it-is-generally", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-muir/the-mountains-of-california/it-is-generally", "text": "It is generally supposed that complete pleasure of this kind, permeating one's very flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific pursuits in which cool judgment and observation are required. But the effect is just the opposite. Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the mind is fertilized and stimulated and developed like sun-fed plants.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Muir", "slug": "john-muir", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-muir" }, "book": { "title": "The Mountains of California", "slug": "the-mountains-of-california", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-muir/the-mountains-of-california" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 350, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "pleasure", "slug": "pleasure", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pleasure" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Muir#The_Mountains_of_California_(1894)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:50" }, { "id": "c4fcd02c-e050-4d7c-bba7-9d4ffce8ccc8", "slug": "i-felt-as", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein/i-felt-as", "text": "I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein – more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mary Shelley", "slug": "mary-shelley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley" }, "book": { "title": "Frankenstein", "slug": "frankenstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:46" }, { "id": "a2431247-5b59-4b41-821f-4a783c2c46c5", "slug": "the-ancient-teachers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein/the-ancient-teachers", "text": "The ancient teachers of this science promised impossibilities, and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mary Shelley", "slug": "mary-shelley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley" }, "book": { "title": "Frankenstein", "slug": "frankenstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:46" }, { "id": "4898407e-3e59-4a03-acb4-98580b3a81fc", "slug": "one-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein/one-of-the", "text": "One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mary Shelley", "slug": "mary-shelley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley" }, "book": { "title": "Frankenstein", "slug": "frankenstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:46" }, { "id": "230fc58e-9c92-4aad-aaaa-8f98f41e1f98", "slug": "no-one-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein/no-one-can", "text": "No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mary Shelley", "slug": "mary-shelley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley" }, "book": { "title": "Frankenstein", "slug": "frankenstein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-shelley/frankenstein" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(novel)#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:46" }, { "id": "bf212650-8f54-4e83-a5df-4f1020fdb91d", "slug": "very-evocative-he-seems", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear/blood-music/very-evocative-he-seems", "text": "“Very evocative. He seems to be confirming what I said last year—that the universe really has no underpinnings, that when a good hypothesis comes along, one that explains the prior events, the underpinnings shape themselves to accommodate and a powerful theory is born.”\n\n“Then there is no ultimate reality?”\n\n“Apparently not. Bad hypotheses, those that don’t fit what happen on our level, are rejected by the universe. Good ones, powerful ones, are incorporated.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Bear", "slug": "greg-bear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear" }, "book": { "title": "Blood Music", "slug": "blood-music", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear/blood-music" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 239, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Bear#Blood_Music_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:44" }, { "id": "a28063e5-8b35-4e25-bb26-567ca590a071", "slug": "information-can-be-stored", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear/blood-music/information-can-be-stored", "text": "Information can be stored even more compactly than in molecular memory. It can be stored in the structure of space-time. What is matter, after all, but a standing-wave of information in the vacuum?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Greg Bear", "slug": "greg-bear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear" }, "book": { "title": "Blood Music", "slug": "blood-music", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/greg-bear/blood-music" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 237, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greg_Bear#Blood_Music_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:44" }, { "id": "d1d49f42-9b22-487d-8798-daafddfdb032", "slug": "when-the-sciences", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/when-the-sciences", "text": "When the sciences are supreme, average people lose their feeling of causality.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Paul Goodman", "slug": "paul-goodman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman" }, "book": { "title": "Growing Up Absurd", "slug": "growing-up-absurd", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 144, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Goodman#Growing_Up_Absurd_(1956)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:40" }, { "id": "259b8b4f-1a0d-4c00-b7ec-0a3b32dbab46", "slug": "no-art-or-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murasaki-shikibu/the-tale-of-genji/no-art-or-learning", "text": "\"No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly,\" His Highness replied, \"...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Murasaki Shikibu", "slug": "murasaki-shikibu", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murasaki-shikibu" }, "book": { "title": "The Tale of Genji", "slug": "the-tale-of-genji", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/murasaki-shikibu/the-tale-of-genji" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murasaki_Shikibu#Tale_of_Genji", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:39" }, { "id": "d3090e8d-18bf-4995-a833-4bea58c2e982", "slug": "only-a-fraction", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz/on-war/only-a-fraction", "text": "...only a fraction of book learning will seep into practical life anyhow; and the more foolish the theory, the less of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl von Clausewitz", "slug": "carl-von-clausewitz", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz" }, "book": { "title": "On War", "slug": "on-war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-von-clausewitz/on-war" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz#Book_6", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:38" }, { "id": "75a10fe7-39b1-4c83-9b85-aea8e47d84f3", "slug": "this-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise/this-is-the", "text": "“This is the nature of modern death. It has a life independent of us. It is growing in prestige and dimension. It has a sweep it never had before. We study it objectively. We can predict its appearance, trace its path in the body. We can take cross-section pictures of it, tape its tremors and waves. We’ve never been so close to it, so familiar with its habits and attitudes. We know it intimately. But it continues to grow, to acquire breadth and scope, new outlets, new passages and means. The more we learn, the more it grows. Is this some law of physics? Every advance in knowledge and technique is matched by a new kind of death, a new strain. Death adapts, like a viral agent. Is it a law of nature? Or some private superstition of mine? I sense that the dead are closer to us than ever. I sense that we inhabit the same air as the dead.” – Murray", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Don DeLillo", "slug": "don-delillo", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo" }, "book": { "title": "White Noise", "slug": "white-noise", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/don-delillo/white-noise" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "death", "slug": "death", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/White_Noise_(novel)#Murray", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:38" }, { "id": "75eb05c3-2b0d-4bc0-b809-aaf3723613dc", "slug": "the-nineteenth-century", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gertrude-stein/wars-i-have-seen/the-nineteenth-century", "text": "The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Gertrude Stein", "slug": "gertrude-stein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gertrude-stein" }, "book": { "title": "Wars I Have Seen", "slug": "wars-i-have-seen", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/gertrude-stein/wars-i-have-seen" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein#Wars_I_Have_Seen_(1945)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:34" }, { "id": "c3234b54-2ba8-46dc-8780-c87c623955be", "slug": "for-years-it-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain/for-years-it-was", "text": "For years it was stated that men had forty-eight chromosomes in their cells; there were pictures to prove it, and any number of careful studies. In 1953, a group of American researchers announced to the world that the human chromosome number was forty-six. Once more, there were pictures to prove it, and studies to confirm it. But these researchers also went back to reexamine the old pictures, and the old studies — and found only forty-six chromosomes, not forty-eight.\n\nLeavitt's Rule of 48 said simply, \"All Scientists Are Blind.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "The Andromeda Strain", "slug": "the-andromeda-strain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:21" }, { "id": "561ab320-dea8-4f20-b090-4a2245f670c2", "slug": "the-biologist-r-a-janek", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain/the-biologist-r-a-janek", "text": "The biologist R. A. Janek has said that \"increasing vision is increasingly expensive.\" He meant by this that any machine to enable men to see finer or fainter details increased in cost faster than it increased in resolving power.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "The Andromeda Strain", "slug": "the-andromeda-strain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:21" }, { "id": "304c146a-db30-40a0-b477-7e4dcf0883e1", "slug": "as-stone-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain/as-stone-was", "text": "As Stone was fond of saying, scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and your instruments, but in the end your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Michael Crichton", "slug": "michael-crichton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton" }, "book": { "title": "The Andromeda Strain", "slug": "the-andromeda-strain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-crichton/the-andromeda-strain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "chance", "slug": "chance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/chance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:21" }, { "id": "cd09ad0d-deff-4991-a478-5a0b2e20e413", "slug": "as-for-types", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-bellow/the-adventures-of-augie-march/as-for-types", "text": "As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn’t make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting — the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Saul Bellow", "slug": "saul-bellow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-bellow" }, "book": { "title": "The Adventures of Augie March", "slug": "the-adventures-of-augie-march", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/saul-bellow/the-adventures-of-augie-march" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow#The_Adventures_of_Augie_March_(1953)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:19" }, { "id": "f6f62b75-4718-438b-9719-a91a55828290", "slug": "everything-we-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert/everything-we-can", "text": "Everything we can measure seems small.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Joseph Joubert", "slug": "joseph-joubert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert" }, "book": { "title": "The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert", "slug": "the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-joubert/the-notebooks-of-joseph-joubert" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Joubert#The_Notebooks_of_Joseph_Joubert_(1883)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:09" }, { "id": "6b61a7c1-1f5d-4a9d-9224-6eb7f22a2401", "slug": "i-guess-were", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-winter-of-our-discontent/i-guess-were", "text": "I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Steinbeck", "slug": "john-steinbeck", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck" }, "book": { "title": "The Winter of Our Discontent", "slug": "the-winter-of-our-discontent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-winter-of-our-discontent" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "secrets", "slug": "secrets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Part_One", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:45:02" }, { "id": "fa0ab74e-f547-44dc-b45b-716fb4575a00", "slug": "among-primitives-sometimes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-log-from-the-sea-of-cortez/among-primitives-sometimes", "text": "Among primitives sometimes evil is escaped by never mentioning the name, as in Malaysia, where one never mentions a tiger by name for fear of calling him. Among others, as even among ourselves, the giving of a name establishes a familiarity which renders the thing impotent. It is interesting to see how some scientists and philosophers, who are an emotional and fearful group, are able to protect themselves against fear. In a modern scene, when the horizons stretch out and your philosopher is likely to fall off the world like a Dark Age mariner, he can save himself by establishing a taboo-box which he may call \"mysticism\" or \"supernaturalism\" or \"radicalism.\" Into this box he can throw all those thoughts which frighten him and thus be safe from them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Steinbeck", "slug": "john-steinbeck", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck" }, "book": { "title": "The Log from the Sea of Cortez", "slug": "the-log-from-the-sea-of-cortez", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-steinbeck/the-log-from-the-sea-of-cortez" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#The_Log_from_the_Sea_of_Cortez_(1951)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:59" }, { "id": "a37c9b25-47ee-49d3-ae5b-b763885c2c00", "slug": "today-we-know", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers/today-we-know", "text": "Today we know that on the sub-atomic level the fate of an electron or a whole atom is not determined by its past. But this discovery has not led to any basically new departure in the philosophy of nature, only to a state of bewildered embarrassment, a further retreat of physics into a language of even more abstract symbolism. Yet if causality has broken down and events are not rigidly governed by the pushes and pressures of the past, may they not be influenced in some manner by the \"pull\" of the future—which is a manner of saying that \"purpose\" may be a concrete physical factor in the evolution of the universe, both on the organic and unorganic levels. In the relativistic cosmos, gravitation is a result of the curvature and creases in space which continually tend to straighten themselves out—which, as Whittaker remarked, \"is a statement so completely teleological that it certainly would have delighted the hearts of the schoolmen.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur Koestler", "slug": "arthur-koestler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler" }, "book": { "title": "The Sleepwalkers", "slug": "the-sleepwalkers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler#The_Sleepwalkers:_A_History_of_Man's_Changing_Vision_of_the_Universe_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:55" }, { "id": "6dfa85f0-0df1-4fd4-a4fd-484a71d76e2b", "slug": "we-find-in-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers/we-find-in-the", "text": "We find in the history of ideas mutations which do not seem to correspond to any obvious need, and at first sight appear as mere playful whimsies — such as Apollonius' work on conic sections, or the non-Euclidean geometries, whose practical value became apparent only later.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur Koestler", "slug": "arthur-koestler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler" }, "book": { "title": "The Sleepwalkers", "slug": "the-sleepwalkers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler#The_Sleepwalkers:_A_History_of_Man's_Changing_Vision_of_the_Universe_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:55" }, { "id": "68a05188-7bca-4ebd-9d3c-581bf6b5379d", "slug": "the-uomo-universale", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers/the-uomo-universale", "text": "The uomo universale of the Renaissance, who was artist and craftsman, philosopher and inventor, humanist and scientist, astronomer and monk, all in one, split up into his component parts. Art lost its mythical, science its mystical inspiration; man became again deaf to the harmony of the spheres. The Philosophy of Nature became ethically neutral, and \"blind\" became the favourite adjective for the working of natural law. The space-spirit hierarchy was replaced by the space-time continuum. ...man's destiny was no longer determined from \"above\" by a super-human wisdom and will, but from \"below\" by the sub-human agencies of glands, genes, atoms, or waves of probability. ...they could determine his fate, but could provide him with no moral guidance, no values and meaning. A puppet of the Gods is a tragic figure, a puppet suspended on his chromosomes is merely grotesque.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur Koestler", "slug": "arthur-koestler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler" }, "book": { "title": "The Sleepwalkers", "slug": "the-sleepwalkers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler#The_Sleepwalkers:_A_History_of_Man's_Changing_Vision_of_the_Universe_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:55" }, { "id": "11032ae9-2bde-463b-92d5-f746a56cc3d8", "slug": "if-there-is-a-lesson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers/if-there-is-a-lesson", "text": "If there is a lesson in our story it is that the manipulation, according to strictly self-consistent rules, of a set of symbols representing one single aspect of the phenomena may produce correct, verifiable predictions, and yet completely ignore all other aspects whose ensemble constitutes reality...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur Koestler", "slug": "arthur-koestler", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler" }, "book": { "title": "The Sleepwalkers", "slug": "the-sleepwalkers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-koestler/the-sleepwalkers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler#The_Sleepwalkers:_A_History_of_Man's_Changing_Vision_of_the_Universe_(1959)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:55" }, { "id": "3d4c5be2-f2e0-4fe2-b297-327ee20d66e1", "slug": "a-major-breakthrough", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/enlightenment-now/a-major-breakthrough", "text": "A major breakthrough of the Scientific Revolution - perhaps its biggest breakthrough - was to refute the intuition that the universe is saturated with purpose. In this primitive but ubiquitous understanding, everything happens for a reason, so when bad things happen - accidents, disease, famine, poverty - some agent must have wanted them to happen.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Pinker", "slug": "steven-pinker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker" }, "book": { "title": "Enlightenment Now", "slug": "enlightenment-now", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/enlightenment-now" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 24, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "chance", "slug": "chance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/chance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker#Enlightenment_Now_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:50" }, { "id": "e975b750-5f93-42c9-bae3-6825aa16c81c", "slug": "as-an-experimental", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/words-and-rules/as-an-experimental", "text": "As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Pinker", "slug": "steven-pinker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker" }, "book": { "title": "Words And Rules", "slug": "words-and-rules", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/words-and-rules" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 84, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker#Words_and_Rules:_The_Ingredients_of_Language_(Basic_Books,_1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:49" }, { "id": "b158fe9e-7864-4eda-b053-74c6c2860e64", "slug": "the-psychologist-dedre", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-stuff-of-thought/the-psychologist-dedre", "text": "The psychologist Dedre Gentner and her collaborators have shown that a focus on relationships is the key to the power of analogy as a tool of reasoning. They note that many scientific theories were first stated as analogies, and often are still best explained that way: gravity is like light, heat is like a fluid, evolution is like selective breeding, the atom is like a solar system, genes are like coded messages. For an analogy to be scientifically useful, though, the correspondences can’t apply to a part of one thing that merely resembles a part of the other. They have to apply to the relationships between the parts, and even better, to the relationships between the relationships, and to the relationships between the relationships between the relationships.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Steven Pinker", "slug": "steven-pinker", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker" }, "book": { "title": "The Stuff of Thought", "slug": "the-stuff-of-thought", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/steven-pinker/the-stuff-of-thought" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 254, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker#The_Stuff_of_Thought_(2007)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:49" }, { "id": "7ab62bbd-6f6f-4b2d-b85f-b71d80c59e22", "slug": "yes-god-makes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/galileos-dream/yes-god-makes", "text": "Yes. God makes the world using mathematics, and he has given us minds that can see it. We can discover the laws He used! It is a most beautiful thing to witness and understand! It's prayer. It's more than prayer, it's a sacrament, a kind of communion. An apprehension—an epiphany—it's seeing God, while still in this body and in this world! How blessed we are, to be able to experience God like that! Who would not devote their time to understanding more, to seeing deeper in God's manner of thinking about these things?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Galileo's Dream", "slug": "galileos-dream", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/galileos-dream" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Galileo's_Dream_(2009)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:47" }, { "id": "e2c9702f-cf3f-4d55-be9a-71d698724ef0", "slug": "and-all-this", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/and-all-this", "text": "And all this vast articulated structure of a culture stood out in the open sun of day, accessible to anyone who wanted to join, who was willing and able to do the work; there were no secrets, there were no closed shops, and if every lab and every specialization had its politics, that was just politics; and in the end politics could not materially affect the structure itself, the mathematical edifice of their understanding of the phenomenal world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 657, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:46" }, { "id": "c590a2b9-5f8a-4e05-a52f-b48cd97ae1f7", "slug": "in-fact-sax", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/in-fact-sax", "text": "In fact Sax was suspicious of all the current cosmology, placing humanity as it did right at the center of things, time after time. It suggested to Sax that all these formulations were artifacts of human perception only, the strong anthropic principle seeping into everything they saw, like color.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 641, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:46" }, { "id": "9983b0f6-23eb-413d-99ef-fa7173bbeffc", "slug": "but-he-persevered", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/but-he-persevered", "text": "But he persevered. That was what a scientist did, confronted with an enigma.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 649, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "perseverance", "slug": "perseverance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/perseverance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:46" }, { "id": "788d816f-3a46-4ade-a35c-5e21265c2fcb", "slug": "science-was-a-social", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/science-was-a-social", "text": "Science was a social construct, but it was also and most importantly its own space, conforming to reality only; that was its beauty. Truth is beauty, as the poet had said, speaking of science. And it was; the poet had been right (they weren’t always).", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 657, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:46" }, { "id": "1b13050d-7936-4108-9dc4-d3ee5cd3d2f1", "slug": "and-so-he-struggled", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/and-so-he-struggled", "text": "And so he struggled on. As he did he saw it anew, as fresh as in his undergraduate days: the structure of science was so beautiful. It was surely one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit, a kind of stupendous parthenon of the mind, constantly a work in progress, like a symphonic epic poem of thousands of stanzas, being composed by them all in a giant ongoing collaboration. The language of the poem was mathematics, because this appeared to be the language of nature itself; there was no other way to explain the startling adherence of natural phenomena to mathematical expressions of great difficulty and subtlety. And so in this marvelous family of languages their songs explored the various manifestations of reality, in different fields of science, and each science worked up its standard model to explain things, all constellating at some distance around the basics of particle physics, depending on what level or scale was being investigated, so that all the standard models hopefully interlocked in a coherent larger structure.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 656, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:46" }, { "id": "e467c7cf-8845-4093-848b-14e1d6cfafa2", "slug": "economics-was-like", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/economics-was-like", "text": "Economics was like psychology, a pseudoscience trying to hide that fact with intense theoretical hyperelaboration. And gross domestic product was one of those unfortunate measurement concepts, like inches or the British thermal unit, that ought to have been retired long before.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 80, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "e101a26b-0fdd-4eb8-ace0-9853c855d689", "slug": "thinking-it-over", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/thinking-it-over", "text": "Thinking it over, Sax said,”Do you ever worry that work on a realm so far beyond the reach of experiment will turn out to be a kind of house of cards—knocked over by some simple discrepancy in the math, or some later different theory that does the job better, or is more confirmable?”\n\n“No,” Bao said. “Something so beautiful as this has to be true.”", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 422, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "e042ff55-99f1-4307-baa4-e8d5f551921b", "slug": "if-enough-data", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars/if-enough-data", "text": "If enough data points trouble the theory, the theory may be wrong. If the theory is basic, the paradigm may have to change.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Green Mars", "slug": "green-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 410, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Green_Mars_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "9e24671f-dfe4-4567-9147-8813e12c5073", "slug": "but-one-had", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/but-one-had", "text": "But one had to trust instruments over instincts, that was science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 70, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "intuition", "slug": "intuition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intuition" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "780a60ac-2bb9-448d-9727-9dbaa7cb6ccd", "slug": "sax-shook-his", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars/sax-shook-his", "text": "Sax shook his head. It was amazing how floridly elaborate a pseudoscience could get. A compensation technique, perhaps; a desperate attempt to be more like physics.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Blue Mars", "slug": "blue-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/blue-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 54, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Blue_Mars_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "44dae3c3-7a1e-489d-b0ec-d7380e1ee2a9", "slug": "you-conceive-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars/you-conceive-of-science", "text": "You conceive of science as nothing more than answers to questions?\n\nAs a system for generating answers.\n\nAnd what is the purpose of that?\n\n...To know.\n\nAnd what will you do with your knowledge?\n\n...Find out more.\n\nBut why?\n\nI don’t know. It’s the way I am.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Green Mars", "slug": "green-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 401, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Green_Mars_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:45" }, { "id": "c88ec08d-b916-40b1-9553-2b6ac8d54d90", "slug": "science-was-many", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars/science-was-many", "text": "Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Red Mars", "slug": "red-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 137, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Red_Mars_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:44" }, { "id": "1c400833-c557-4598-bcd6-9bc890d34ebb", "slug": "it-was-a-real", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars/it-was-a-real", "text": "It was a real science; it had discovered there among the contingency and disorder, some valid general principles of evolution—development, adaptation, complexification, and many more specific principles as well, confirmed by the various subdisciplines.\n\nWhat he needed were similar principles influencing human history. The little reading he did in historiography was not encouraging; it was either a sad imitation of the scientific method, or art pure and simple. About every decade a new historical explanation revised all that had come before, but clearly revisionism held pleasures that had nothing to do with the actual justice of the case being made.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Green Mars", "slug": "green-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/green-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 221, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Green_Mars_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:44" }, { "id": "7c1e86ed-488a-4f43-845a-3acf3bfe2f68", "slug": "whenever-scientists-say", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars/whenever-scientists-say", "text": "“Whenever scientists say they’re Christian,” Sax said, “I take it to be an aesthetic statement.”\n\n“The church of the wouldn’t-it-be-pretty-to-think-so,” Frank said.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kim Stanley Robinson", "slug": "kim-stanley-robinson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson" }, "book": { "title": "Red Mars", "slug": "red-mars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kim-stanley-robinson/red-mars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 53, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson#Red_Mars_(1992)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:43" }, { "id": "8e33b843-1f0b-4095-9152-328fae90dbd5", "slug": "complex-organisms-cannot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/i-have-landed/complex-organisms-cannot", "text": "Complex organisms cannot be construed as the sum of their genes, nor do genes alone build particular items of anatomy or behavior by themselves. Most genes influence several aspects of anatomy and behavior—as they operate through complex interactions with other genes and their products, and with environmental factors both within and outside the developing organism. We fall into a deep error, not just a harmful oversimplification, when we speak of genes “for” particular items of anatomy or behavior.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "I Have Landed", "slug": "i-have-landed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/i-have-landed" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 234, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#I_Have_Landed_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:35" }, { "id": "6821d097-4e25-4b76-a189-f168cc9be0b0", "slug": "in-natural-history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech/in-natural-history", "text": "[In natural history,] great discovery often requires a map to a hidden mine filled with gems then easily gathered by conventional tools, not a shiny new space-age machine for penetrating previously inaccessible worlds.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "The Lying Stones of Marrakech", "slug": "the-lying-stones-of-marrakech", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 318, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#The_Lying_Stones_of_Marrakech_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:35" }, { "id": "4c55cb75-0c78-4512-aed5-8e6d07667d49", "slug": "g-enes-make-enzymes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech/g-enes-make-enzymes", "text": "[G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of chemical processes. Genes do not make “novelty seeking” or any other complex and overt behavior. Predisposition via a long chain of complex chemical reactions, mediated through a more complex series of life's circumstances, does not equal identification or even causation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "The Lying Stones of Marrakech", "slug": "the-lying-stones-of-marrakech", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 282, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "character", "slug": "character", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#The_Lying_Stones_of_Marrakech_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:35" }, { "id": "1823a00b-59bf-4156-a026-1899c846fa15", "slug": "t-his-theme-of-mutually", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech/t-his-theme-of-mutually", "text": "[T]his theme of mutually invisible life at widely differing scales bears an important implication for the “culture wars” that supposedly now envelop our universities and our intellectual discourse in general […]. One side of this false dichotomy features the postmodern relativists who argue that all culturally bound modes of perception must be equally valid, and that no factual truth therefore exists. The other side includes the benighted, old-fashioned realists who insist that flies truly have two wings, and that Shakespeare really did mean what he thought he was saying. The principle of scaling provides a resolution for the false parts of this silly dichotomy. Facts are facts and cannot be denied by any rational being. (Often, facts are also not at all easy to determine or specify—but this question raises different issues for another time.) Facts, however, may also be highly scale dependent—and the perceptions of one world may have no validity or expression in the domain of another. The one-page map of Maine cannot recognize the separate boulders of Acadia, but both provide equally valid representations of a factual coastline.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "The Lying Stones of Marrakech", "slug": "the-lying-stones-of-marrakech", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/the-lying-stones-of-marrakech" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 355, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#The_Lying_Stones_of_Marrakech_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:35" }, { "id": "a427ba51-ba60-43a4-a592-b32a701ef324", "slug": "w-hat-intellectual-phenomenon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/w-hat-intellectual-phenomenon", "text": "[W]hat intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft repeated, than the story of a large research program that impaled itself upon a false central assumption accepted by all practitioners? Do we regard all people who worked within such traditions as dishonorable fools? What of the scientists who assumed that the continents were stable, that the hereditary material was protein, or that all other galaxies lay within the Milky Way? These false and abandoned efforts were pursued with passion by brilliant and honorable scientists. How many current efforts, now commanding millions of research dollars and the full attention of many of our best scientists, will later be exposed as full failures based on false premises?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 187, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "8c4b890e-c4f5-406f-a01a-8b10c385bcba", "slug": "each-worldview-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/each-worldview-was", "text": "Each worldview was a cultural product, but evolution is true and separate creation is not. […] Worldviews are social constructions, and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully. Fact and theory are intertwined, and all great scientists understand the interaction.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 425, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "6c98e605-e22f-4121-9979-b5c98efdb5e0", "slug": "we-debase-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/we-debase-the", "text": "We debase the richness of both nature and our own minds if we view the great pageant of our intellectual history as a compendium of new information leading from primal superstition to final exactitude. We know that the sun is hub of our little corner of the universe, and that ties of genealogy connect all living things on our planet, because these theories assemble and explain so much otherwise disparate and unrelated information—not because Galileo trained his telescope on the moons of Jupiter or because Darwin took a ride on a Galápagos tortoise.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 441, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "5ce3d349-81f8-4ddf-9ef9-ccc53adbb9ac", "slug": "great-theories-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/great-theories-are", "text": "Great theories are expansive; failures mire us in dogmatism and tunnel vision.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 165, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "50e1c8be-a73b-4fdc-903b-e0851d3ac3c3", "slug": "all-interesting-issues", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/all-interesting-issues", "text": "All interesting issues in natural history are questions of relative frequency, not single examples. Everything happens once amidst the richness of nature. But when an unanticipated phenomenon occurs again and again—finally turning into an expectation—then theories are overturned.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Wonderful Life", "slug": "wonderful-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 136, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Wonderful_Life_(1989)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "4c5f6ebb-375c-4819-bab2-22270cb1bbb5", "slug": "s-cience-is-often", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/s-cience-is-often", "text": "[S]cience is often regarded as the most objective and truth-directed of human enterprises, and since direct observation is supposed to be the favored route to factuality, many people equate respectable science with visual scrutiny—just the facts ma'am, and palpably before my eyes. But science is a battery of observational and inferential methods, all directed to the testing of propositions that can, in principle, be definitely proven false. […] At all scales, from smallest to largest, quickest to slowest, many well-documented conclusions of science lie beyond the strictly limited domain of direct observation. No one has ever seen an electron or a black hole, the events of a picosecond or a geological eon.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 200, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "3e585826-4f02-411e-ae1f-957a951f2215", "slug": "good-scholars-struggle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/good-scholars-struggle", "text": "Good scholars struggle to understand the world in an integral way (pedants bite off tiny bits and worry them to death). These visions of reality […] demand our respect, for they are an intellectual's only birthright. They are often entirely wrong and always flawed in serious ways, but they must be understood honorably and not subjected to mayhem by the excision of patches.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 136, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "intellectuals", "slug": "intellectuals", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intellectuals" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "160da5c8-efc2-4e0a-870f-c2a387b7d77f", "slug": "details-are-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies/details-are-all", "text": "Details are all that matters: God dwells there, and you never get to see Him if you don't struggle to get them right.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Eight Little Piggies", "slug": "eight-little-piggies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/eight-little-piggies" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 14, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Eight_Little_Piggies_(1993)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "10908600-d6a9-4000-a97d-dc50d07219ed", "slug": "i-believe-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/i-believe-that", "text": "I believe […] that we can still have a genre of scientific books suitable for and accessible alike to professionals and interested laypeople. The concepts of science, in all their richness and ambiguity, can be presented without any compromise, without any simplification counting as distortion, in language accessible to all intelligent people. […] I hope that this book can be read with profit both in seminars for graduate students and—if the movie stinks and you forgot your sleeping pills—on the businessman's special to Tokyo.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Wonderful Life", "slug": "wonderful-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 16, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "writing", "slug": "writing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Wonderful_Life_(1989)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "0854d791-fa74-4b6a-b8a1-f01de041c23f", "slug": "h-istorical-science-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life/h-istorical-science-is-not", "text": "[H]istorical science is not worse, more restricted, or less capable of achieving firm conclusions because experiment, prediction, and subsumption under invariant laws of nature do not represent its usual working methods. The sciences of history use a different mode of explanation, rooted in the comparative and observational richness in our data. We cannot see a past event directly, but science is usually based on inference, not unvarnished observation (you don't see electrons, gravity, or black holes either).", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen Jay Gould", "slug": "stephen-jay-gould", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould" }, "book": { "title": "Wonderful Life", "slug": "wonderful-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-jay-gould/wonderful-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 279, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "history", "slug": "history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/history" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Wonderful_Life_(1989)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:34" }, { "id": "8c672a72-3e21-44a9-8582-5683db3308e9", "slug": "look-at-what", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/t-h-white/the-sword-in-the-stone/look-at-what", "text": "\"Look at what a lot of things there are to learn - pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theo-criticism and geology and history and economics - why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn how to beat your opponent at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics until it is time to learn to plough.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "T. H. White", "slug": "t-h-white", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/t-h-white" }, "book": { "title": "The Sword in the Stone", "slug": "the-sword-in-the-stone", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/t-h-white/the-sword-in-the-stone" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Once_and_Future_King#The_Sword_in_the_Stone_(1938)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:10" }, { "id": "b6a86bbb-f47e-4cf5-a290-6b0faf5edca8", "slug": "the-difference-between", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/the-difference-between", "text": "The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Time Enough For Love", "slug": "time-enough-for-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 348, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:01" }, { "id": "9d51636c-ae8b-477d-b5be-6f0f387f540e", "slug": "one-mans-magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/one-mans-magic", "text": "One man's \"magic\" is another man's engineering. \"Supernatural\" is a null word.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Time Enough For Love", "slug": "time-enough-for-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 250, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:01" }, { "id": "79f57c04-6265-4aeb-9ec6-fb33a3a12507", "slug": "if-it-cant", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love/if-it-cant", "text": "If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Time Enough For Love", "slug": "time-enough-for-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/time-enough-for-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 240, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:44:00" }, { "id": "86b0a298-ac71-4fec-9ba0-0b9c1c7f7d20", "slug": "service-men-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers/service-men-are", "text": "Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d' etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called 'Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "Starship Troopers", "slug": "starship-troopers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/starship-troopers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "responsibility", "slug": "responsibility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers#Chapter_12", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:58" }, { "id": "b79541df-276c-41cf-ae9c-92618070074c", "slug": "there-are-but", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/the-past-through-tomorrow/there-are-but", "text": "There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert A. Heinlein", "slug": "robert-a-heinlein", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein" }, "book": { "title": "The Past Through Tomorrow", "slug": "the-past-through-tomorrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-a-heinlein/the-past-through-tomorrow" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 24, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "authority figures", "slug": "authority-figures", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authority-figures" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein#The_Past_Through_Tomorrow_(1967)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:55" }, { "id": "cf436b5a-c516-4913-98d1-79541e8b1ab2", "slug": "experience-is-indeed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-beginning-of-infinity/experience-is-indeed", "text": "Experience is indeed essential to science, but its role is different from that supposed by empiricism. It is not the source from which theories are derived. Its main use is to choose between theories that have already been guessed. That is what ‘learning from experience’ is.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Beginning of Infinity", "slug": "the-beginning-of-infinity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-beginning-of-infinity" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "experience", "slug": "experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/experience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Beginning_of_Infinity_(2011)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:52" }, { "id": "54aa589a-3298-4eaa-bfb3-9f63cc6b7345", "slug": "science-can-destroy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end/science-can-destroy", "text": "Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "Childhood's End", "slug": "childhoods-end", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/childhoods-end" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Childhood's_End#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:52" }, { "id": "a90a3b16-8afb-4b1a-807f-5e400ed8d6e3", "slug": "kuhns-theory-suffers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality/kuhns-theory-suffers", "text": "Kuhn's theory suffers from a fatal flaw. It explains the succession from one paradigm to another in sociological or psychological terms, rather than as having primarily to do with the objective merit of the rival explanations. Yet unless one understands science as a quest for explanations, the fact that it does find successive explanations, each objectively better than the last, is inexplicable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Fabric of Reality", "slug": "the-fabric-of-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Reality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:51" }, { "id": "95c74460-7aba-48d2-8694-89a1a0b9d348", "slug": "the-truly-privileged", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality/the-truly-privileged", "text": "The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy—but the ones that contain the deepest explanations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Fabric of Reality", "slug": "the-fabric-of-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Reality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:51" }, { "id": "7f48a7ac-77ce-4608-a92f-3e411abf6b00", "slug": "the-overwhelming-majority", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality/the-overwhelming-majority", "text": "The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Fabric of Reality", "slug": "the-fabric-of-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Reality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:51" }, { "id": "63618794-0dba-4641-b978-bbcdd0de5fb6", "slug": "our-best-theories", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality/our-best-theories", "text": "Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Fabric of Reality", "slug": "the-fabric-of-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Reality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:51" }, { "id": "43a687b5-cd76-45df-95ac-3a90fb275e68", "slug": "to-say-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality/to-say-that", "text": "To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel. … Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Deutsch", "slug": "david-deutsch", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch" }, "book": { "title": "The Fabric of Reality", "slug": "the-fabric-of-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-deutsch/the-fabric-of-reality" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Deutsch#The_Fabric_of_Reality_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:51" }, { "id": "36c6931d-8c54-4d33-b234-7b3c5fd58d26", "slug": "i-was-reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-g-wodehouse/right-ho-jeeves/i-was-reading", "text": "I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "P. G. Wodehouse", "slug": "p-g-wodehouse", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-g-wodehouse" }, "book": { "title": "Right Ho, Jeeves", "slug": "right-ho-jeeves", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/p-g-wodehouse/right-ho-jeeves" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse#Right_Ho,_Jeeves_(1934)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:29" }, { "id": "fdb03f17-41b9-4eb3-b5e3-c0b4a8627d63", "slug": "it-is-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-more", "text": "It is more difficult for a modern scientist to be a serious Christian, like Polkinghorne, than to be a serious Muslim, like the Nobel Prize-winning physicisit Abdus Salam. Salam happily proclaimed his Muslim faith but did not feel any need to write books about it. For Salam, the idea of a conflict between his faith and his science was ludicrous. Muslim faith has nothing to do with science. But Polkinghorne writes books to prove to himself and to us that his theology and his science can live together harmoniously..", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:13" }, { "id": "e6fd3467-1fec-4d65-8bd9-a3f4c443804f", "slug": "it-is-probably", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-probably", "text": "It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind. A thousand years of theological disputes nurtured the habit of analytical thinking that could also be applied to the analysis of natural phenomena. On the other hand, the close historical relations between theology and science have caused conflicts between science and Christianity that does not exist between science and other religions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:13" }, { "id": "7e609fa4-48eb-45dc-a257-f4dba665cab0", "slug": "when-all-is-said", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/when-all-is-said", "text": "When all is said and done, science is about things and theology is about words. Things behave in the same way everywhere, but words do not. ... Theology works in one culture alone. If you have not grown up in Polkinghorne's culture, where words such as \"incarnation\" and \"trinity\" have a profound meaning, you cannot share his vision.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "words", "slug": "words", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/words" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:13" }, { "id": "46ebf958-7dc8-4b64-a64e-1f9fdc422966", "slug": "it-is-a-curious", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/it-is-a-curious", "text": "It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "paradox", "slug": "paradox", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/paradox" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:13" }, { "id": "c375468b-2a0a-4ad1-ad53-e9756adaeac4", "slug": "science-as-subversion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/science-as-subversion", "text": "Science as subversion has a long history. ... Davis and Sakharov belong to an old tradition in science that goes all the way back to the rebels Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley in the eighteenth century, to Galileo and Giordano Bruno in the seventeenth and sixteenth. If science ceases to be a rebellion against authority, then it does not deserve the talents of our brightest children. ... We should try to introduce our children to science today as a rebellion against poverty and ugliness and militarism and economic injustice.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:12" }, { "id": "a6acb0b5-b14f-4166-ba65-4ad185d08cc6", "slug": "the-progress-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/the-progress-of-science", "text": "The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:12" }, { "id": "5927f478-73ef-465a-a490-bfcbb4082d9d", "slug": "a-good-scientist", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/disturbing-the-universe/a-good-scientist", "text": "A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "Disturbing The Universe", "slug": "disturbing-the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/disturbing-the-universe" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Disturbing_the_Universe_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:12" }, { "id": "290bf765-bf59-4e72-9af1-2b2634bdceec", "slug": "progress-in-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/progress-in-science", "text": "Progress in science is often built on wrong theories that are later corrected. It is better to be wrong than to be vague.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:12" }, { "id": "037dbdb1-ed6b-4dba-b8df-f2b446362827", "slug": "there-is-no-such", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel/there-is-no-such", "text": "There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture, Western or Eastern as the case may be. It is no more Western than it is Arab or Indian or Japanese or Chinese. Arabs and Indians and Japanese and Chinese had a big share in the development of modern science. And two thousand years earlier, the beginnings of science were as much Babylonian and Egyptian as Greek. One of the central facts about science is that it pays no attention to East and West and North and South and black and yellow and white. It belongs to everybody who is willing to make the effort to learn it. And what is true of science is true of poetry. ... Poetry and science are gifts given to all of humanity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Freeman Dyson", "slug": "freeman-dyson", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson" }, "book": { "title": "The Scientist as Rebel", "slug": "the-scientist-as-rebel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/freeman-dyson/the-scientist-as-rebel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "poetry", "slug": "poetry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#The_Scientist_As_Rebel_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:12" }, { "id": "a3ee35ce-5c84-4c08-ab0d-91b5c46f0935", "slug": "they-knew-how", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury/the-martian-chronicles/they-knew-how", "text": "They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn’t try too hard to be all men and no animal. That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn’t mix. Or at least we didn’t think they did, We were fools. We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They wouldn’t move very well. So, like idiots, we tried knocking down religion. We succeeded pretty well. We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for. If art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of desire, if religion was no more than self-delusion, what good was life? Faith had always given us answers to all things. But it all went down the drain with Freud and Darwin. We were and still are a lost people.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ray Bradbury", "slug": "ray-bradbury", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury" }, "book": { "title": "The Martian Chronicles", "slug": "the-martian-chronicles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury/the-martian-chronicles" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Martian_Chronicles#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:10" }, { "id": "4c4870a0-9ea9-4565-b4a7-df046fe9d5a4", "slug": "at-base-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury/the-martian-chronicles/at-base-science", "text": "…at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. It’s all simply a matter of degree.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ray Bradbury", "slug": "ray-bradbury", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury" }, "book": { "title": "The Martian Chronicles", "slug": "the-martian-chronicles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ray-bradbury/the-martian-chronicles" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" }, { "name": "miracles", "slug": "miracles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/miracles" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Martian_Chronicles#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:10" }, { "id": "604abdfa-d95c-44bd-966d-6d3d716316fb", "slug": "did-you-appreciate", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/and-yet/did-you-appreciate", "text": "Did you appreciate that each column of the Parthenon makes a very slight inward incline, so that if projected upward into space they would eventually steeple themselves together at a symmetrical point in the empyrean? The “rightness” is located somewhere between the beauty of science and the science of beauty.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Christopher Hitchens", "slug": "christopher-hitchens", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens" }, "book": { "title": "And Yet", "slug": "and-yet", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/christopher-hitchens/and-yet" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens#And_Yet...:_Essays_(2015)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:43:06" }, { "id": "815e75a6-b2b0-4eea-9051-7cdf5cb6c919", "slug": "hed-found-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/good-omens/hed-found-that", "text": "He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Neil Gaiman", "slug": "neil-gaiman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman" }, "book": { "title": "Good Omens", "slug": "good-omens", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/neil-gaiman/good-omens" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Good_Omens#Friday", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:53" }, { "id": "eef4b36c-4261-4ecd-a933-7f8790409da0", "slug": "but-yet-they", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/but-yet-they", "text": "But yet they that have no Science, are in better, and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence; than men, that by their mis-reasoning, or by trusting them that reason wrong, fall upon false and absurd generall rules.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 21, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "wisdom", "slug": "wisdom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/wisdom" }, { "name": "mistakes", "slug": "mistakes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mistakes" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_5", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "b762f731-c45c-4876-b70e-06f160be089d", "slug": "it-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan/it-is-not", "text": "It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. For who is so stupid as both to mistake in geometry, and also to persist in it, when another detects his error to him?\n\nBy this it appears that reason is not, as sense and memory, born with us; nor gotten by experience only, as prudence is; but attained by industry: first in apt imposing of names; and secondly by getting a good and orderly method in proceeding from the elements, which are names, to assertions made by connexion of one of them to another; and so to syllogisms, which are the connexions of one assertion to another, till we come to a knowledge of all the consequences of names appertaining to the subject in hand; and that is it, men call science. And whereas sense and memory are but knowledge of fact, which is a thing past and irrevocable, science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another; by which, out of that we can presently do, we know how to do something else when we will, or the like, another time: because when we see how anything comes about, upon what causes, and by what manner; when the like causes come into our power, we see how to make it produce the like effects.\n\nChildren therefore are not endued with reason at all, till they have attained the use of speech, but are called reasonable creatures for the possibility apparent of having the use of reason in time to come.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Hobbes", "slug": "thomas-hobbes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes" }, "book": { "title": "Leviathan", "slug": "leviathan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-hobbes/leviathan" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 21, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes#Chapter_5", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:47" }, { "id": "46dcdca8-7ed6-4657-86ad-0c6237b125bd", "slug": "science-never-cheered", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/timequake/science-never-cheered", "text": "Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human situation is just too awful.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Timequake", "slug": "timequake", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/timequake" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 121, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Timequake#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:44" }, { "id": "83ceb48b-31d4-4255-96d8-ef42487ab229", "slug": "science-is-magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/science-is-magic", "text": "Science is magic that works.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Cat's Cradle", "slug": "cats-cradle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:37" }, { "id": "2174ae6b-f964-4c9d-a622-09e4044a96ac", "slug": "i-am-a-very", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/i-am-a-very", "text": "I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscientific.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Cat's Cradle", "slug": "cats-cradle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "empathy", "slug": "empathy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/empathy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:37" }, { "id": "edb5de92-279f-4af0-94c1-fc2fdd6046cb", "slug": "dr-hoenikker-used", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/dr-hoenikker-used", "text": "Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Cat's Cradle", "slug": "cats-cradle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "simplicity", "slug": "simplicity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/simplicity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:36" }, { "id": "9921c414-b98e-4788-9961-7a91b377d4e6", "slug": "dr-asa-breed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/dr-asa-breed", "text": "[Dr. Asa Breed] said, the trouble with the world was... that people were still superstitious instead of scientific. He said that if everybody would study science more, there wouldn’t be all the trouble there was.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Cat's Cradle", "slug": "cats-cradle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "superstitions", "slug": "superstitions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/superstitions" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:36" }, { "id": "7554eba8-96c9-4bec-bb7c-6a73c4d287f0", "slug": "there-are-lots", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle/there-are-lots", "text": "There are lots of good anecdotes about the bomb and Father ... For instance, do you know the story about Father on the day they first tested a bomb out at Alamagordo? After the things went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?'", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Kurt Vonnegut", "slug": "kurt-vonnegut", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut" }, "book": { "title": "Cat's Cradle", "slug": "cats-cradle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/kurt-vonnegut/cats-cradle" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "sin", "slug": "sin", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/sin" }, { "name": "nuclear weapons", "slug": "nuclear-weapons", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nuclear-weapons" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:36" }, { "id": "79ec7179-6cd6-45e2-8dc6-b371a757d459", "slug": "survival-comes-first", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game/survival-comes-first", "text": "Survival comes first, truth, understanding, and science later.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Skin in the Game", "slug": "skin-in-the-game", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 214, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Skin_in_the_Game_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:34" }, { "id": "ab4b8bcc-0795-4bbb-900d-a863610db0ae", "slug": "i-n-academia-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game/i-n-academia-there", "text": "[I]n academia there is no difference between academia and the real world; in the real world, there is.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Skin in the Game", "slug": "skin-in-the-game", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/skin-in-the-game" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 3, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Skin_in_the_Game_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:33" }, { "id": "54ac3dd5-cea3-405d-b80c-94605dd92c71", "slug": "a-theory-is-a-very", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile/a-theory-is-a-very", "text": "[A] theory is a very dangerous thing to have.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Antifragile", "slug": "antifragile", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/antifragile" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 116, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "risk", "slug": "risk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/risk" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Antifragile:_Things_That_Gain_from_Disorder_(2012)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:33" }, { "id": "d5ab3a68-c63c-4d79-ae50-35d5ea8a15d5", "slug": "social-science-means", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/social-science-means", "text": "Social science means inventing a certain brand of human we can understand.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "The Bed of Procrustes", "slug": "the-bed-of-procrustes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 95, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#The_Bed_of_Procrustes:_Philosophical_and_Practical_Aphorisms_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:32" }, { "id": "aa232265-baa5-4115-b1fb-80ad8bbca04e", "slug": "academia-is-to-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/academia-is-to-knowledge", "text": "Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "The Bed of Procrustes", "slug": "the-bed-of-procrustes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#The_Bed_of_Procrustes:_Philosophical_and_Practical_Aphorisms_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:32" }, { "id": "a304b452-7f3d-4950-8bff-f540f3b76a70", "slug": "hard-science-gives", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/hard-science-gives", "text": "Hard science gives sensational results with a horribly boring process; philosophy gives boring results with a sensational process; literature gives sensational results with a sensational process; and economics gives boring results with a boring process.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "The Bed of Procrustes", "slug": "the-bed-of-procrustes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 45, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "literature", "slug": "literature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#The_Bed_of_Procrustes:_Philosophical_and_Practical_Aphorisms_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:32" }, { "id": "8a162d19-ebad-4438-b195-98af3bc27c0e", "slug": "asking-science-to-explain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/asking-science-to-explain", "text": "Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "The Bed of Procrustes", "slug": "the-bed-of-procrustes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 17, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "poetry", "slug": "poetry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poetry" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#The_Bed_of_Procrustes:_Philosophical_and_Practical_Aphorisms_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:32" }, { "id": "4f812175-e8a0-4369-a300-119c25ff832f", "slug": "in-science-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes/in-science-you", "text": "In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "The Bed of Procrustes", "slug": "the-bed-of-procrustes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/the-bed-of-procrustes" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "business", "slug": "business", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/business" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#The_Bed_of_Procrustes:_Philosophical_and_Practical_Aphorisms_(2010)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:32" }, { "id": "f50a5cc7-03a5-4250-86f9-7165dfc0d50f", "slug": "many-scientists-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/many-scientists-are", "text": "Many scientists... are... subject to such foolishness... One flagrant example is... global warming... These scientists initially ignored the fact that these [high temperature] spikes, although rare, had the effect of adding disproportionately to the cumulative melting of the ice caps. ...[A]n event, although rare, that brings large consequences cannot be ignored.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Fooled by Randomness", "slug": "fooled-by-randomness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ecology", "slug": "ecology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ecology" }, { "name": "risk", "slug": "risk", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/risk" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Fooled_by_Randomness_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:31" }, { "id": "a17afd53-bd0d-423d-87eb-eede7693b767", "slug": "in-economics-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/in-economics-you", "text": "[In] economics... you can disguise charlatanism under the weight of equations and nobody can catch you since there is no such thing as a controlled experiment. Now the spirit of such methods, called scientism by its detractors, continued into the discipline of finance as a few technicians thought their mathematical knowledge could lead them to understand markets. The practice of financial engineering came along with massive doses of pseudoscience. (page 115)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Fooled by Randomness", "slug": "fooled-by-randomness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" }, { "name": "deception", "slug": "deception", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/deception" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Fooled_by_Randomness_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:31" }, { "id": "27f9e7ff-e7b3-4d70-a9ae-8e7d323ff4ac", "slug": "david-hume-posed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness/david-hume-posed", "text": "David Hume posed the issue in the following way (as rephrased in the black swan problem by... John Stuart Mill) No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Nassim Nicholas Taleb", "slug": "nassim-nicholas-taleb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb" }, "book": { "title": "Fooled by Randomness", "slug": "fooled-by-randomness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/nassim-nicholas-taleb/fooled-by-randomness" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Fooled_by_Randomness_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:31" }, { "id": "75b9de69-6e45-4ed2-8ca8-663ec36faefb", "slug": "it-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea/it-is-not", "text": "It is not \"scientism\" to concede the objectivity and precision of good science, any more than it is history worship to concede that Napoleon did once rule in France and the Holocaust actually happened. Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Dennett", "slug": "daniel-dennett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett" }, "book": { "title": "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", "slug": "darwins-dangerous-idea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:29" }, { "id": "cbd798e3-b17a-4271-a44c-f9cf91fe0f24", "slug": "the-evidence-of-evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea/the-evidence-of-evolution", "text": "The evidence of evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin's chief sources), but from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Doubts about the power of Darwin's idea of natural selection to explain this evolutionary process are still intellectually respectable, however, although the burden of proof for such skepticism has become immense...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Dennett", "slug": "daniel-dennett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett" }, "book": { "title": "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", "slug": "darwins-dangerous-idea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:28" }, { "id": "770a9e17-bbfe-4c72-9aba-c14cacfa318f", "slug": "there-is-a-familiar", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea/there-is-a-familiar", "text": "There is a familiar trio of reactions by scientists to a purportedly radical hypothesis: (a) \"You must be out of your mind!\", (b) \"What else is new? Everybody knows that!\", and, later — if the hypothesis is still standing — (c) \"Hmm. You *might* be on to something!\" Sometimes these phases take years to unfold, one after another, but I have seen all three emerge in near synchrony in the course of a half-hour's heated discussion following a conference paper.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Dennett", "slug": "daniel-dennett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett" }, "book": { "title": "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", "slug": "darwins-dangerous-idea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:28" }, { "id": "5328179e-4678-4bca-ab1b-6c8a820fbf91", "slug": "the-fundamental-core", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea/the-fundamental-core", "text": "The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dispute among scientists. It demonstrates its power every day, contributing crucially to the explanation of planet-sized facts of geology and meteorology, through middle-sized facts of ecology and agronomy, down to the latest microscopic facts of genetic engineering. It unifies all of biology and the history of our planet into a single grand story. Like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput, it is unbudgable, not because of some one or two huge chains of argument that might — hope against hope — have weak links in them, but because it is securely tied by thousands of threads of evidence anchoring it to virtually every other area of human knowledge. New discoveries may conceivably lead to dramatic, even \"revolutionary\" shifts in the Darwinian theory, but the hope that it will be \"refuted\" by some shattering breakthrough is about as reasonable as the hope that we will return to a geocentric vision and discard Copernicus.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Daniel Dennett", "slug": "daniel-dennett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett" }, "book": { "title": "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", "slug": "darwins-dangerous-idea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/daniel-dennett/darwins-dangerous-idea" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evolution", "slug": "evolution", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evolution" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:28" }, { "id": "158816d8-419c-46e0-9879-145d529022db", "slug": "the-social-sciences", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-ustinov/dear-me/the-social-sciences", "text": "The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Peter Ustinov", "slug": "peter-ustinov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-ustinov" }, "book": { "title": "Dear Me", "slug": "dear-me", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-ustinov/dear-me" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Ustinov#Dear_Me_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:18" }, { "id": "347e9966-d029-474d-bf04-fdc4a3b71fe6", "slug": "what-was-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/what-was-life", "text": "What was life? It was warmth, the warmth generated by a form-preserving instability, a fever of matter, which accompanied the process of ceaseless decay and repair of protein molecules that were too impossibly ingenious in structure.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Thomas Mann", "slug": "thomas-mann", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann" }, "book": { "title": "The Magic Mountain", "slug": "the-magic-mountain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann#The_Magic_Mountain_(1924)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:16" }, { "id": "77fb5d79-665d-44e7-a873-f61f33379c35", "slug": "science-has-ended", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience/science-has-ended", "text": "Science... has ended by utterly repudiating the personal point of view. She catalogues her elements and records her laws indifferent as to what purpose may be shown forth by them, and constructs her theories quite careless of their bearing on human anxieties and fates. Though the scientist may individually nourish a religion, and be a theist in his irresponsible hours, the days are over when it could be said that for Science herself the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Our solar system, with its harmonies, is seen now as but one passing case of a certain sort of moving equilibrium in the heavens, realized by a local accident in an appalling wilderness of worlds where no life can exist. In a span of time which as a cosmic interval will count but as an hour, it will have ceased to be. The Darwinian notion of chance production, and subsequent destruction, speedy or deferred, applies to the largest as well as to the smallest facts. It is impossible, in the present temper of the scientific imagination, to find in the driftings of the cosmic atoms, whether they work on the universal or on the particular scale, anything but a kind of aimless weather, doing and undoing, achieving no proper history, and leaving no result. Nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to feel a sympathy. In the vast rhythm of her processes... she appears to cancel herself. The books of natural theology which satisfied the intellects of our grandfathers seem to us quite grotesque, representing, as they did, a God who conformed the largest things of nature to the paltriest of our private wants. The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals. The bubbles on the foam which coats a stormy sea are floating episodes, made and unmade by the forces of the wind and water. Our private selves are like those bubbles—epiphenomena, as Clifford, I believe, ingeniously called them; their destinies weigh nothing and determine nothing in the world's irremediable currents of events.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "William James", "slug": "william-james", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Religious Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-religious-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-james/the-varieties-of-religious-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_James#The_Varieties_of_Religious_Experience_(1902)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:15" }, { "id": "e40d52ef-d0b9-4f94-8edc-7d4d13b98ff7", "slug": "the-integral-vision", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit/the-integral-vision", "text": "The integral vision, I believe, is more than happy to welcome empirical science as a part—a very important part—of the endeavor to befriend the Kosmos, to be attuned to its many moods and flavors and facets and forms. But a more integral psychology goes beyond that … With science we touch the True, the \"It\" of Spirit. With morals we touch the Good, the \"We\" of Spirit. What, then, would an integral approach have to say about the Beautiful, the \"I\" of Spirit itself? What is the Beauty that is in the eye of the Beholder? When we are in the eye of Spirit, the I of Spirit, what do we finally see?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Eye of Spirit", "slug": "the-eye-of-spirit", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-eye-of-spirit" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Eye_of_Spirit:_An_Integral_Vision_for_a_World_Gone_Slightly_Mad_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "dd120357-a2bf-4f65-b8a0-581cdc6ca3fb", "slug": "are-the-mystics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/a-brief-history-of-everything/are-the-mystics", "text": "Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don't they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe they are mumbling idiots in the face of the Abyss. Maybe they need a nice, understanding therapist. Yes, I'm sure that would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity—a total embrace of the entire Kosmos—a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. It's at least plausible. And tell me: is that story, sung by mystics and sages the world over, any crazier than the scientific materialism story, which is that the entire sequence is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing? Listen very carefully: just which of those two stories actually sounds totally insane?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Everything", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-everything", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/a-brief-history-of-everything" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 42, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" }, { "name": "spirituality", "slug": "spirituality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/spirituality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#A_Brief_History_of_Everything_(1996)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "cc5f7c44-929d-4a44-b446-853d3378ac9c", "slug": "within-the-scientific", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul/within-the-scientific", "text": "Within the scientific skeleton of truth, religious meaning attempts to flourish, often by denying the scientific framework itself—rather like sawing off the branch where you cheerily perch. The disgust is mutual because modern science gleefully denies virtually all the basic tenets of religion in general. According to the typical view of modern science, religion is not much more than a holdover from the childhood of humanity, with about as much reality as, say, Santa Claus. Whether the religious claims are more literal (Moses parting the Red Sea) or more mystical (religion involves direct spiritual experience), modern science denies them all, simply because there is no credible empirical evidence for any of them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Marriage of Sense and Soul", "slug": "the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Marriage_of_Sense_and_Soul_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "b6999fbc-eba5-461e-b73b-c891b76ea003", "slug": "there-is-arguably", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul/there-is-arguably", "text": "There is arguably no more important and pressing topic than the relation of science and religion in the modern world. Science is clearly one of the most profound methods that humans have yet devised for discovering truth, while religion remains the single greatest force for generating meaning. Truth and meaning, science and religion; but we still cannot figure out how to get the two of them together in a fashion that both find acceptable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Marriage of Sense and Soul", "slug": "the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Marriage_of_Sense_and_Soul_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "180163f2-724b-468d-9541-4b521df3d25e", "slug": "this-is-a-massive", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul/this-is-a-massive", "text": "This is a massive and violent schism and rupture in the internal organs of today's global culture and this is exactly why many social analysts believe that if some sort of reconciliation between science and religion is not forthcoming, the future of humanity is, at best, precarious.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Ken Wilber", "slug": "ken-wilber", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber" }, "book": { "title": "The Marriage of Sense and Soul", "slug": "the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/ken-wilber/the-marriage-of-sense-and-soul" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#The_Marriage_of_Sense_and_Soul_(1998)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:42:06" }, { "id": "fb12382c-2ec8-45a2-b956-27d78afc3364", "slug": "the-work-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/tristes-tropiques/the-work-of-the", "text": "The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point — more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance — and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Claude Lévi-Strauss", "slug": "claude-levi-strauss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss" }, "book": { "title": "Tristes Tropiques", "slug": "tristes-tropiques", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/tristes-tropiques" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 123, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss#Tristes_Tropiques_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:57" }, { "id": "383eae0a-1aab-45b6-a195-a6e00e99a7e7", "slug": "teaching-and-research", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/tristes-tropiques/teaching-and-research", "text": "Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Claude Lévi-Strauss", "slug": "claude-levi-strauss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss" }, "book": { "title": "Tristes Tropiques", "slug": "tristes-tropiques", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/tristes-tropiques" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 55, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss#Tristes_Tropiques_(1955)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:57" }, { "id": "3249651d-6581-4f05-b820-b565e68d2993", "slug": "i-may-be-subjected", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/myth-and-meaning/i-may-be-subjected", "text": "I may be subjected to the criticism of being called ‘scientistic’ or a kind of blind believer in science who holds that science is able to solve absolutely all problems. Well, I certainly don’t believe that, because I cannot conceive that a day will come when science will be complete and achieved.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Claude Lévi-Strauss", "slug": "claude-levi-strauss", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss" }, "book": { "title": "Myth and Meaning", "slug": "myth-and-meaning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/claude-levi-strauss/myth-and-meaning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss#Myth_and_Meaning_(1978)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:57" }, { "id": "c1a23510-bf3d-4b85-ad4b-67388115d936", "slug": "we-balance-probabilities", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-conan-doyle/the-hound-of-the-baskervilles/we-balance-probabilities", "text": "We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur Conan Doyle", "slug": "arthur-conan-doyle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-conan-doyle" }, "book": { "title": "The Hound of the Baskervilles", "slug": "the-hound-of-the-baskervilles", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-conan-doyle/the-hound-of-the-baskervilles" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 687, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles_(1902)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:42" }, { "id": "f2f0fd8e-77df-4a1f-ba28-268db5779f49", "slug": "well-dutys-duty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world/well-dutys-duty", "text": "Well, duty's duty. One can't consult one's own preference. I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history. China's was hopelessly insecure by comparison; even the primitive matriarchies weren't steadier than we are. Thanks, I repeat, to science. But we can't allow science to undo its own good work. That's why we so carefully limit the scope of its researches–that's why I almost got sent to an island. We don't allow it to deal with any but the most immediate problems of the moment. All other enquiries are most sedulously discouraged.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "Brave New World", "slug": "brave-new-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Chapter_16", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:35" }, { "id": "382ba7e9-e082-433a-9d94-83a4e1a3f5d5", "slug": "its-curious-he-went", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world/its-curious-he-went", "text": "It's curious,\" he went on after a little pause, \"to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific research was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled–after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson–paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aldous Huxley", "slug": "aldous-huxley", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley" }, "book": { "title": "Brave New World", "slug": "brave-new-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aldous-huxley/brave-new-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "happiness", "slug": "happiness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Brave_New_World#Chapter_16", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:35" }, { "id": "fc04fd42-17d6-4807-903f-9b81a61ae902", "slug": "the-third-aspect", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all/the-third-aspect", "text": "The third aspect of my subject is that of science as a method of finding things out. This method is based on the principle that observation is the judge of whether something is so or not. All other aspects and characteristics of science can be understood directly when we understand that observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea. But \"prove\" used in this way really means \"test,\" in the same way that a hundred-proof alcohol is a test of the alcohol, and for people today the idea really should be translated as, \"The exception tests the rule.\" Or, put another way, \"The exception proves that the rule is wrong.\" That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Meaning of It All", "slug": "the-meaning-of-it-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Meaning_of_It_All_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:01" }, { "id": "9567fede-b31e-41b3-ab99-036da32463e1", "slug": "the-remark-which", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/the-remark-which", "text": "The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right as long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue I needed to understand the problem. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit. So I suggest, maybe correctly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", "slug": "the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Pleasure_of_Finding_Things_Out_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:01" }, { "id": "4d0fa1b8-429e-4640-bbbe-8b3ae72b5512", "slug": "i-believe-in-limited", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all/i-believe-in-limited", "text": "I believe in limited government. I believe that government should be limited in many ways, and what I am going to emphasize is only an intellectual thing. I don't want to talk about everything at the same time. Let's take a small piece, an intellectual thing.No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Meaning of It All", "slug": "the-meaning-of-it-all", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-meaning-of-it-all" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "the state", "slug": "the-state", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-state" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Meaning_of_It_All_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:01" }, { "id": "0c575c30-3db3-4f83-af15-55900cccc65c", "slug": "ive-always-been", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/ive-always-been", "text": "I've always been rather very one-sided about the science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it. I didn't have time to learn, and I didn't have much patience for what's called the humanities; even though in the university there were humanities that you had to take, I tried my best to avoid somehow to learn anything and to work on it. It's only afterwards, when I've gotten older and more relaxed that I've spread out a little bit — I've learned to draw, and I read a little bit, but I'm really still a very one-sided person and don't know a great deal. I have a limited intelligence and I've used it in a particular direction.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out", "slug": "the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 2, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Pleasure_of_Finding_Things_Out_(1999)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:01" }, { "id": "7bcea8e0-3714-43fc-a845-c2f78e331ad3", "slug": "i-wanted-very", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/i-wanted-very", "text": "I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. It's difficult to describe because it's an emotion. It's analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do with a god that controls everything in the whole universe: there's a generality aspect that you feel when you think about how things that appear so different and behave so differently are all run \"behind the scenes\" by the same organization, the same physical laws. It's an appreciation of the mathematical beauty of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is. It's a feeling of awe — of scientific awe — which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman", "slug": "surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 261, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:00" }, { "id": "29e732c6-1315-447b-ad45-c014e54277d1", "slug": "i-have-a-friend", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think/i-have-a-friend", "text": "I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, \"Look how beautiful it is,\" and I'll agree. But then he'll say, \"I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull.\" I think he's kind of nutty. ... There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'", "slug": "what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 11, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:00" }, { "id": "15b30818-a7b0-4159-a925-d527e500f773", "slug": "the-electron-is-a-theory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/the-electron-is-a-theory", "text": "The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman", "slug": "surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 70, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reality", "slug": "reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:00" }, { "id": "10948e2d-1be9-4e40-8fc2-1d11b9c18770", "slug": "the-only-way", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think/the-only-way", "text": "The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "'What Do You Care What Other People Think?'", "slug": "what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/what-do-you-care-what-other-people-think" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 217, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "integrity", "slug": "integrity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/integrity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think%3F_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:41:00" }, { "id": "d4e1130e-70bc-4ed7-9b3d-b573f110c77b", "slug": "it-is-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/it-is-not", "text": "It is not unscientific to make a guess, although many people who are not in science think it is. Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said “I don’t think there are flying saucers”. So my antagonist said, “Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it’s impossible?” “No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”. At that he said, “You are very unscientific. If you can’t prove it impossible then how can you say that it’s unlikely?” But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. To define what I mean, I might have said to him, \"Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence.\" It is just more likely. That is all.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 165, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "cefdfc61-20f9-4bef-9f7c-10ad4958c6ed", "slug": "in-general-we-look-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/in-general-we-look-for", "text": "In general, we look for a new law by the following process: First we guess it. Then we – now don't laugh, that's really true. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what, if this is right, if this law that we guessed is right, to see what it would imply. And then we compare the computation results to nature, or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "a6ac52f2-6198-438c-90fe-045853f30175", "slug": "people-are-always", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/qed/people-are-always", "text": "People are always asking for the latest developments in the unification of this theory with that theory, and they don't give us a chance to tell them anything about what we know pretty well. They always want to know the things we don't know.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "Qed", "slug": "qed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/qed" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 3, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#QED:_The_Strange_Theory_of_Light_and_Matter_(1985)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "776007f6-1e59-4b24-9fe6-fc968505f963", "slug": "our-imagination-is-stretched", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/our-imagination-is-stretched", "text": "Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 127, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "imagination", "slug": "imagination", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/imagination" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "6f381603-b028-4d86-8b95-86a72c38399c", "slug": "this-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/this-is-the", "text": "This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 15, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "69eeae1c-2c5e-4c10-b1e3-312dcf09b2de", "slug": "one-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/one-of-the", "text": "One of the most important things in this 'guess — compute consequences — compare with experiment' business is to know when you are right. It is possible to know when you are right way ahead of checking all the consequences. You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. It is always easy when you have made a guess, and done two or three little calculations to make sure that it is not obviously wrong, to know that it is right. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right — at least if you have any experience — because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. Your guess is, in fact, that something is very simple. If you cannot see immediately that it is wrong, and it is simpler than it was before, then it is right. The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 171, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "simplicity", "slug": "simplicity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/simplicity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "14cdf627-9ccb-471d-b445-1b38f0cda2c4", "slug": "if-we-have", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law/if-we-have", "text": "If we have confidence in a law, then if something appears to be wrong it can suggest to us another phenomenon.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard P. Feynman", "slug": "richard-p-feynman", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman" }, "book": { "title": "The Character of Physical Law", "slug": "the-character-of-physical-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/the-character-of-physical-law" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 23, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#The_Character_of_Physical_Law_(1965)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:59" }, { "id": "b493f37a-bc31-43bd-9283-4f796e1f709d", "slug": "what-we-must", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eleanor-roosevelt/tomorrow-is-now/what-we-must", "text": "What we must learn to do is to create unbreakable bonds between the sciences and the humanities. We cannot procrastinate. The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Eleanor Roosevelt", "slug": "eleanor-roosevelt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eleanor-roosevelt" }, "book": { "title": "Tomorrow Is Now", "slug": "tomorrow-is-now", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/eleanor-roosevelt/tomorrow-is-now" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 134, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Tomorrow_Is_Now_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:58" }, { "id": "f28e42af-0aca-4fa3-bc52-b9a01aad6402", "slug": "science-under-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/science-under-the", "text": "Science, under the guise of benefiting mankind, is a dangerous force that often tampers with natural processes, without recognizing the consequences. Under such a scenario, mass destruction is inevitable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Dune:_The_Butlerian_Jihad_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:50" }, { "id": "d4e00e4b-c350-40da-98db-4f71ef702640", "slug": "science-the-creation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/science-the-creation", "text": "Science: the creation of dilemmas by the solutions of mysteries.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "secrets", "slug": "secrets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Dune:_The_Butlerian_Jihad_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:50" }, { "id": "1dea29e5-a9b5-4b36-b575-e0f2f920cfa1", "slug": "science-lost-in-its", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/science-lost-in-its", "text": "Science: lost in its own mythos, redoubling its efforts when it's forgotten it's aim.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Dune:_The_Butlerian_Jihad_(2002)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:50" }, { "id": "3ef74412-a841-477f-aeff-7be74edd7736", "slug": "men-finding-no-answers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/men-finding-no-answers", "text": "Men, finding no answers to the sunnah [the ten thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Appendices", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:49" }, { "id": "20ba15a0-b16c-447b-8987-3bae7703ddf7", "slug": "science-is-made", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune/science-is-made", "text": "Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Frank Herbert", "slug": "frank-herbert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert" }, "book": { "title": "Dune", "slug": "dune", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/frank-herbert/dune" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dune#Book_2:_Muad'Dib", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:48" }, { "id": "647c04b0-754e-49b4-8e52-1c08997a5fe9", "slug": "however-baby-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick/however-baby-man", "text": "However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate lie can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Herman Melville", "slug": "herman-melville", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville" }, "book": { "title": "Moby-Dick", "slug": "moby-dick", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/herman-melville/moby-dick" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 306, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" }, { "name": "the sea", "slug": "the-sea", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-sea" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Moby-Dick#Brit_(58)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:41" }, { "id": "ad65cb19-8586-4cd1-8f8c-aa05f42e404d", "slug": "the-second-law", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila/the-second-law", "text": "The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all energy systems run down like a clock and never rewind themselves. But life not only 'runs up,' converting low energy sea-water, sunlight and air into high-energy chemicals, it keeps multiplying itself into more and better clocks that keep 'running up' faster and faster. Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organize themselves into a professor of chemistry? What's the motive? If we leave a chemistry professor out on a rock in the sun long enough the forces of nature will convert him into simple compounds of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and small amounts of other minerals. It's a one-way reaction. No matter what kind of chemistry professor we use and no matter what process we use we can't turn these compounds back into a chemistry professor. Chemistry professors are unstable mixtures of predominantly unstable compounds which, in the exclusive presence of the sun's heat, decay irreversibly into simpler organic and inorganic compounds. That's a scientific fact. The question is: Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth causes the inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't the sun's energy. We just saw what the sun's energy did. It has to be something else. What is it?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Lila", "slug": "lila", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/lila" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "life", "slug": "life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Lila_(1991)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:34" }, { "id": "f13e7b0d-3aa8-43a5-a524-9d961511ccc5", "slug": "now-he-began", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/now-he-began", "text": "Now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth—but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "slug": "zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:33" }, { "id": "b6729ebf-8f14-4a2d-873b-550578f20579", "slug": "the-results-of-socrates", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-results-of-socrates", "text": "The results of Socrates' martyrdom and Plato's unexcelled prose that followed are nothing less than the whole world of Western man as we know it. If the idea of truth had been allowed to perish unrediscovered by the Renaissance it's unlikely that we would be much beyond the level of prehistoric man today. The ideas of science and technology and other systematically organized efforts of man are dead-centered on it. It is the nucleus of it all.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "slug": "zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:33" }, { "id": "ad95dbd2-0f7f-4048-97a4-ee7a3a319083", "slug": "the-number-of-rational", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-number-of-rational", "text": "The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "slug": "zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:33" }, { "id": "6c649e81-c3ac-458f-8556-95d74f9cec5e", "slug": "traditional-scientific-method", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/traditional-scientific-method", "text": "Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "slug": "zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:33" }, { "id": "c44b56f9-ce48-44be-abb9-9c71f4cbee5a", "slug": "if-you-like", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/brief-answers-to-the-big-questions/if-you-like", "text": "If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God', but it wouldn't be a personal God that you would meet and put questions to. Although, if there were such a God, I would like to ask however did he think of anything as complicated as M-theory in eleven dimensions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", "slug": "brief-answers-to-the-big-questions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/brief-answers-to-the-big-questions" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 36, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Brief_Answers_to_the_Big_Questions_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:32" }, { "id": "8df0d0b7-2965-4c28-bd85-e474b0a1d442", "slug": "the-romantic-mode", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/the-romantic-mode", "text": "The romantic mode is primarily inspirational, imaginative, creative, intuitive. Feelings rather than facts predominate. \"Art\" when it is opposed to \"Science\" is often romantic. It does not proceed by reason or by laws. It proceeds by feeling, intuition and esthetic conscience. In the northern European cultures the romantic mode is usually associated with femininity, but this is certainly not a necessary association.\n\nThe classic mode, by contrast, proceeds by reason and by laws—which are themselves underlying forms of thought and behavior. In the European cultures it is primarily a masculine mode and the fields of science, law and medicine are unattractive to women largely for this reason. Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Robert M. Pirsig", "slug": "robert-m-pirsig", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig" }, "book": { "title": "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "slug": "zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-m-pirsig/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" }, { "name": "reason", "slug": "reason", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reason" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig#Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_(1974)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:32" }, { "id": "472a026e-44de-478e-a369-946dee087c7b", "slug": "if-one-made", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/brief-answers-to-the-big-questions/if-one-made", "text": "If one made a research grant application to work on time travel it would be dismissed immediately. No government agency could afford to be seen to be spending public money on anything as way out as time travel. Instead one has to use technical terms like closed time-like curves, which are code for time travel.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", "slug": "brief-answers-to-the-big-questions", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/brief-answers-to-the-big-questions" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 133, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "humor", "slug": "humor", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humor" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Brief_Answers_to_the_Big_Questions_(2018)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:32" }, { "id": "f31e5354-8c8e-461f-b305-92c7c31a9a7b", "slug": "any-physical-theory", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time/any-physical-theory", "text": "Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. As philosopher of science Karl Popper has emphasized, a good theory is characterized by the fact that it makes a number of predictions that could in principle be disproved or falsified by observation. Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Time", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 10, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "evidence", "slug": "evidence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evidence" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#A_Brief_History_of_Time_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:31" }, { "id": "b104b933-20d7-40e9-a86f-72101b473fcf", "slug": "the-whole-history", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time/the-whole-history", "text": "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Time", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 122, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#A_Brief_History_of_Time_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:31" }, { "id": "75fdaae2-4252-4347-b3b1-37948bfab367", "slug": "even-if-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time/even-if-there", "text": "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Time", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 174, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#A_Brief_History_of_Time_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:31" }, { "id": "61a8229d-bff3-490e-8d9c-dd645985e3c5", "slug": "it-has-certainly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time/it-has-certainly", "text": "It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don’t, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Time", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 13, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "intelligence", "slug": "intelligence", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/intelligence" }, { "name": "survival", "slug": "survival", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/survival" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#A_Brief_History_of_Time_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:31" }, { "id": "2036612e-bb48-41bb-9fd9-94f534da269f", "slug": "galileo-perhaps-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time/galileo-perhaps-more", "text": "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Stephen W. Hawking", "slug": "stephen-w-hawking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking" }, "book": { "title": "A Brief History of Time", "slug": "a-brief-history-of-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-w-hawking/a-brief-history-of-time" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 179, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#A_Brief_History_of_Time_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:31" }, { "id": "9510188e-f413-4dc1-9515-fd1afa73b939", "slug": "if-theres-nothing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/if-theres-nothing", "text": "If there's nothing in here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:30" }, { "id": "f3dcda26-e8e3-4d60-859a-5d78481444c1", "slug": "weve-arranged-a-global", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world/weve-arranged-a-global", "text": "We've arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting — profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Demon-Haunted World", "slug": "the-demon-haunted-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 26, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "technology", "slug": "technology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/technology" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "e3d3b651-7c48-406b-82d4-aa5dd6e7237c", "slug": "at-the-heart", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world/at-the-heart", "text": "At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Demon-Haunted World", "slug": "the-demon-haunted-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "b3edfd43-e429-4b74-95fa-4b112f2310b7", "slug": "if-we-long", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world/if-we-long", "text": "If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Demon-Haunted World", "slug": "the-demon-haunted-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 12, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "pride", "slug": "pride", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/pride" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "ad3728b7-d965-4794-b504-b0a7e509297d", "slug": "think-of-how", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world/think-of-how", "text": "Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Demon-Haunted World", "slug": "the-demon-haunted-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 30, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "9c672b65-2462-4102-8a72-e9a62cce9a9e", "slug": "evolving-before-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/evolving-before-our", "text": "Evolving before our eyes has been a God of the Gaps; that is, whatever it is we cannot explain lately is attributed to God.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "8150941b-cab8-42ea-afac-0cfbb49c792e", "slug": "the-history-of-science-especially", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/the-history-of-science-especially", "text": "The history of science—especially physics—has in part been the tension between the natural tendency to project our everyday experience on the universe and the universe's noncompliance...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "5cf688c7-fb71-42a7-ab01-b8f65f15cb94", "slug": "humans-may-crave", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world/humans-may-crave", "text": "Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Demon-Haunted World", "slug": "the-demon-haunted-world", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-demon-haunted-world" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 28, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "uncertainty", "slug": "uncertainty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/uncertainty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Demon-Haunted_World_:_Science_as_a_Candle_in_the_Dark_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "59327671-55ab-4b09-88b8-e85c7861a830", "slug": "the-enterprise-of-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/the-enterprise-of-knowledge", "text": "The enterprise of knowledge is consistent surely with science; it should be with religion, and it is essential for the welfare of the human species.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "1e7267d9-0606-4747-b4e7-b61b34623d89", "slug": "science-is-at-least", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/science-is-at-least", "text": "Science is, at least in part, informed worship.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "0df9c618-113f-4d88-834a-d2ad71d3f754", "slug": "once-upon-a-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience/once-upon-a-time", "text": "Once upon a time, the best minds of the human species believed that the planets were attached to crystal spheres. ...Both in classic and in medieval times, it was prominently speculated that gods or angels propelled them, gave them a twirl every now and then. The Newtonian gravitational superstructure replaced angels with GMm/r2... as science advances, there seems to be less and less for God to do.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", "slug": "the-varieties-of-scientific-experience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/the-varieties-of-scientific-experience" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Varieties_of_Scientific_Experience:_A_Personal_View_of_the_Search_for_God_(2006)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:29" }, { "id": "da0b670f-b1bf-460c-b206-12b8fac82892", "slug": "modern-science-has", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot/modern-science-has", "text": "Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Pale Blue Dot", "slug": "pale-blue-dot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:28" }, { "id": "86c9857b-8974-4a22-9586-78512fd73648", "slug": "once-we-overcome", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot/once-we-overcome", "text": "Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars. We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Pale Blue Dot", "slug": "pale-blue-dot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 53, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the universe", "slug": "the-universe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-universe" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:28" }, { "id": "77f0be75-c5cf-450a-834b-9367981a1e22", "slug": "it-is-sometimes", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot/it-is-sometimes", "text": "It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Pale Blue Dot", "slug": "pale-blue-dot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 159, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" }, { "name": "secrets", "slug": "secrets", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/secrets" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:28" }, { "id": "2d173d65-1756-44a1-a018-aed459dd8243", "slug": "in-some-respects", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot/in-some-respects", "text": "In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, \"This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed\"? Instead they say, \"No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Pale Blue Dot", "slug": "pale-blue-dot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/pale-blue-dot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 50, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:28" }, { "id": "d22579a2-55f0-48f4-adb7-a717f1e5c959", "slug": "the-suppression-of-uncomfortable", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/the-suppression-of-uncomfortable", "text": "The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 91, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "censorship", "slug": "censorship", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/censorship" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "4fea6e2d-253a-412c-a771-1d80477cfcae", "slug": "matter-is-composed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/matter-is-composed", "text": "Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 218, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "16021af5-045f-4077-b965-b86e954f4261", "slug": "there-is-no-other", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos/there-is-no-other", "text": "There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Cosmos", "slug": "cosmos", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/cosmos" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 333, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" }, { "name": "authority figures", "slug": "authority-figures", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authority-figures" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_(1980)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:27" }, { "id": "f33b8320-1a63-48f6-aaae-a1baaea76066", "slug": "all-inquiries-carry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/all-inquiries-carry", "text": "All inquiries carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions. But I do not see how we can deal with the universe—both the outside and the inside universe—without studying it. The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations. In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work. If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern—if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table—we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 13, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "education", "slug": "education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/education" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "deb1a5b9-956d-464e-8bab-d256ab226256", "slug": "our-perceptions-may", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/our-perceptions-may", "text": "Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world. Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a gram of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage—at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 15, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "courage", "slug": "courage", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/courage" }, { "name": "prejudice", "slug": "prejudice", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/prejudice" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "d4138c8f-d51d-439b-8cdf-b35cf6fd66aa", "slug": "the-idea-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/the-idea-of-science", "text": "The idea of science as a method rather than as a body of knowledge is not widely appreciated outside of science, or indeed in some corridors inside of science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 96, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "ca8fd4fd-7d6c-4cc7-8544-2512aae8cf1e", "slug": "many-scientists-deeply", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/many-scientists-deeply", "text": "Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant. Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 172, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reading", "slug": "reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading" }, { "name": "childhood", "slug": "childhood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "ae8b764d-56be-4c04-a1c8-32dbcfaf235a", "slug": "in-the-face", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/in-the-face", "text": "In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 166, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "literature", "slug": "literature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "8fe3dc39-b2c7-48e6-ba4c-561b82827b98", "slug": "very-few-scientists", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/very-few-scientists", "text": "Very few scientists actually plunge into the murky waters of testing or challenging borderline or pseudo-scientific beliefs. The chance of finding out something really interesting—except about human nature—seems small, and the amount of time required seems large. I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues, but the fact that a given contention lacks vigorous scientific opposition in no way implies that scientists think it is reasonable.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 69, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "79f261be-8794-442e-bec1-ca2457bd4726", "slug": "scientists-like-other", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/scientists-like-other", "text": "Scientists, like other human beings, have their hopes and fears, their passions and despondencies—and their strong emotions may sometimes interrupt the course of clear thinking and sound practice. But science is also self-correcting. The most fundamental axioms and conclusions may be challenged. The prevailing hypotheses must survive confrontation with observation. Appeals to authority are impermissible. The steps in a reasoned argument must be set out for all to see. Experiments must be reproducible.\n\nThe history of science is full of cases where previously accepted theories and hypotheses have been entirely overthrown, to be replaced by new ideas that more adequately explain the data. While there is an understandable psychological inertia—usually lasting about one generation—such revolutions in scientific thought are widely accepted as a necessary and desirable element of scientific progress. Indeed, the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property, and sets it off from many other areas of human endeavor where credulity is the rule.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 96, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" }, { "name": "authority figures", "slug": "authority-figures", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authority-figures" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "69bcc000-c2ca-4daf-afb0-3d49602d0726", "slug": "the-idea-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/the-idea-that", "text": "The idea that a God or gods is necessary to effect one or more of these origins has been under repeated attack over the last few thousand years. Because we know something about phototropism and plant hormones, we can understand the opening of the morning glory independent of divine microintervention. It is the same for the entire skein of causality back to the origin of the universe. As we learn more and more about the universe, there seems less and less for God to do.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 335, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "47259afc-e27d-4957-9db9-528a93d6dc62", "slug": "it-is-a-good", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/it-is-a-good", "text": "It is a good idea not to make up our minds prematurely on this issue. It is probably best not to let our personal preferences influence the decision. Rather, in the long tradition of successful science, we should permit nature to reveal the truth to us.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 351, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "3d474b55-9c70-431e-9cc6-af89ea58cbab", "slug": "every-new-set", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/every-new-set", "text": "Every new set of discoveries raises a host of questions which we were never before wise enough even to ask.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 183, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "36ac85ce-2d7e-4c72-aa2d-784fb267aa40", "slug": "the-best-antidote", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/the-best-antidote", "text": "The best antidote for pseudoscience, I firmly believe, is science.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 75, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "2d7d7098-e79b-4b45-a53f-87e57155afe2", "slug": "i-believe-that-even", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/i-believe-that-even", "text": "I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nightwalkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer universe, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder. And it has the additional and important virtue—to whatever extent the word has any meaning—of being true.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 76, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "2013e223-29b7-4b0b-a0ee-db4884721801", "slug": "vigorous-criticism-is-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain/vigorous-criticism-is-more", "text": "Vigorous criticism is more constructive in science than in some other areas of human endeavor because in science there are adequate standards of validity that can be agreed upon by competent practitioners the world over. The objective of such criticism is not to suppress but rather to encourage the advance of new ideas: those that survive a firm skeptical scrutiny have a fighting chance of being right, or at least useful.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Broca's Brain", "slug": "brocas-brain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/brocas-brain" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 98, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "criticism", "slug": "criticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/criticism" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Broca's_Brain_(1979)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:26" }, { "id": "b1d415d4-7e2d-432c-b086-327dc32836d8", "slug": "without-these-experimental", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/without-these-experimental", "text": "Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity. There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 193, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "b1268926-0b42-411a-ae49-ecac9694b633", "slug": "the-integrity-of-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/the-integrity-of-the", "text": "The integrity of the experimenters in the face of this unexpected finding is breathtaking. (It is difficult to imagine any experiment that would convince leading practitioners of many political or religious philosophies of the superiority of a competing doctrine.)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 210, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "integrity", "slug": "integrity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/integrity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "b0bf1ef4-ecd1-4b8f-8922-ff3a3d81cec5", "slug": "the-search-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/the-search-for", "text": "The search for patterns without critical analysis, and rigid skepticism without a search for patterns, are the antipodes of incomplete science. The effective pursuit of knowledge requires both functions.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 192, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "skepticism", "slug": "skepticism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/skepticism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "457b1633-0eb3-4a8f-a780-e370c1db73ee", "slug": "the-entire-recent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden/the-entire-recent", "text": "The entire recent history of biology shows that we are, to a remarkable degree, the results of the interactions of an extremely complex array of molecules; and the aspect of biology that was once considered its holy of holies, the nature of the genetic material, has now been fundamentally understood in terms of the chemistry of its constituent nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, and their operational agents, the proteins.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Sagan", "slug": "carl-sagan", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan" }, "book": { "title": "Dragons of Eden", "slug": "dragons-of-eden", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/dragons-of-eden" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 7, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#The_Dragons_of_Eden_(1977)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:25" }, { "id": "e8edfc39-cacf-472b-adc5-cd20a230cdc4", "slug": "research-is-formalized", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/dust-tracks-on-a-road/research-is-formalized", "text": "Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Zora Neale Hurston", "slug": "zora-neale-hurston", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston" }, "book": { "title": "Dust Tracks On A Road", "slug": "dust-tracks-on-a-road", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/zora-neale-hurston/dust-tracks-on-a-road" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 143, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "curiosity", "slug": "curiosity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/curiosity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston#Dust_Tracks_on_a_Road_(1942)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:40:17" }, { "id": "753c74e5-fd0a-4972-978d-aa8805527f82", "slug": "nature-has-pointed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding/nature-has-pointed", "text": "Nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race, and secretly admonished them to allow none of these biases to draw too much, so as to incapacitate them for other occupations and entertainments. Indulge your passion for science, says she, but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Hume", "slug": "david-hume", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume" }, "book": { "title": "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", "slug": "an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" }, { "name": "moderation", "slug": "moderation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/moderation" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hume#An_Enquiry_Concerning_Human_Understanding_(1748)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:55" }, { "id": "9916a92c-13d1-4db4-89ff-52a8e29e93d9", "slug": "we-must-therefore", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature/we-must-therefore", "text": "We must therefore glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures. Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science, which will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Hume", "slug": "david-hume", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume" }, "book": { "title": "A Treatise of Human Nature", "slug": "a-treatise-of-human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hume#A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature_(1739-40)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:54" }, { "id": "5ffdb7a0-5d2c-4f7b-8e79-bae909297953", "slug": "nothing-is-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature/nothing-is-more", "text": "Nothing is more usual and more natural for those, who pretend to discover anything new to the world in philosophy and the sciences, than to insinuate the praises of their own systems, by decrying all those, which have been advanced before them. And indeed were they content with lamenting that ignorance, which we still lie under in the most important questions, that can come before the tribunal of human reason, there are few, who have an acquaintance with the sciences, that would not readily agree with them. 'Tis easy for one of judgment and learning, to perceive the weak foundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit, and have carried their pretensions highest to accurate and profound reasoning. Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want of coherence in the parts, and of evidence in the whole, these are every where to be met with in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawn disgrace upon philosophy itself.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "David Hume", "slug": "david-hume", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume" }, "book": { "title": "A Treatise of Human Nature", "slug": "a-treatise-of-human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/a-treatise-of-human-nature" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "philosophy", "slug": "philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/philosophy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hume#A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature_(1739-40)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:54" }, { "id": "c35731c1-7760-4acf-bf0a-c02055e9a0d2", "slug": "the-abuse-of-books", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/the-abuse-of-books", "text": "The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reading", "slug": "reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_V", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:36" }, { "id": "af1990e1-2f87-411f-86ca-eb48cff6d7e0", "slug": "with-the-help", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/with-the-help", "text": "With the help of dice Descartes made heaven and earth; but he could not set his dice in motion, nor start the action of his centrifugal force without the help of rotation. Newton discovered the law of gravitation; but gravitation alone would soon reduce the universe to a motionless mass; he was compelled to add a projectile force to account for the elliptical course of the celestial bodies; let Newton show us the hand that launched the planets in the tangent of their orbits.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "god", "slug": "god", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#The_Creed_of_the_Savoyard_Priest", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:36" }, { "id": "9e879c8c-c34b-484c-aa64-90e53e3f47ed", "slug": "thinkers-are-seldom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/thinkers-are-seldom", "text": "Thinkers are seldom gamblers; gambling interrupts the habit of thought and turns it towards barren combinations; thus one good result, perhaps the only good result of the taste for science, is that it deadens to some extent this vulgar passion; people will prefer to try to discover the uses of play rather than to devote themselves to it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "gambling", "slug": "gambling", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/gambling" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_IV", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:36" }, { "id": "f9ce608b-1fa5-426e-bc47-3b4abc3acdc8", "slug": "science-does-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/science-does-not", "text": "Science does not give Don Quixote what he demands of it. \"Then let him not make the demand,\" it will be said, \"let him resign himself, let him accept life and truth as they are.\" But he does not accept them as they are, and he asks for signs, urged thereto by Sancho, who stands by his side. And it is not that Don Quixote does not understand what those understand who talk thus to him, those who succeed in resigning themselves and accepting rational life and rational truth. No, it is that the needs of his heart are greater. Pedantry? Who knows!... And he wishes, unhappy man, to rationalize the irrational and irrationalize the rational. And he sinks into despair of the critical century whose two greatest victims were Nietzsche and Tolstoi. And through this despair he reaches the heroic fury of which Giordano Bruno spoke — that intellectual Don Quixote who escaped from the cloister — and became an awakener of sleeping souls (dormitantium animorum excubitor), as the ex-Dominican said of himself — he who wrote: \"Heroic love is the property of those superior natures who are called insane (insano) not because they do not know, but because they over-know (soprasanno).\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "madness", "slug": "madness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/madness" }, { "name": "despair", "slug": "despair", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/despair" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#Conclusion_:_Don_Quixote_in_the_Contemporary_European_Tragi-Comedy", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:24" }, { "id": "0d21b052-133a-4d8c-9e99-273db8c1e8cc", "slug": "physiology-does-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/physiology-does-not", "text": "Physiology does not teach us how to digest, nor logic how to discourse, nor esthetics how to feel beauty or express it, nor ethics how to be good. And indeed it is well if they do not teach us how to be hypocrites; for pedantry, whether it be pedantry of logic, or of esthetics, or of ethics, is at bottom nothing but hypocrisy.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "hypocrisy", "slug": "hypocrisy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#XI_:_The_Practical_Problem", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:23" }, { "id": "f0df1ae7-7874-4e98-96a0-d4f40db96192", "slug": "it-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/it-is-the", "text": "It is the vital asserting itself, and in order to assert itself it creates, with the help of its enemy, the rational, a complete dogmatic structure, and this the Church defends against rationalism, against Protestantism, and against Modernism. The Church defends life. It stood up against Galileo, and it did right; for his discovery, in its inception and until it became assimilated to the general body of human knowledge, tended to shatter the anthropomorphic belief that the universe was created for man. It opposed Darwin, and it did right, for Darwinism tends to shatter our belief that man is an exceptional animal, created expressly to be eternalized. And lastly, Pius IX, the first Pontiff to be proclaimed infallible, declared he was irreconcilable with the so-called modern civilization. And he did right.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "the church", "slug": "the-church", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-church" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#IV_:_The_Essence_of_Catholicism", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:21" }, { "id": "6c76614a-ee9c-4adc-ae85-1e95ad098120", "slug": "science-is-a-cemetery", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/science-is-a-cemetery", "text": "Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ideas", "slug": "ideas", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ideas" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#V_:_The_Rationalist_Dissolution", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:21" }, { "id": "3dc0efa9-c793-47b5-90ed-2c3af8c3baa1", "slug": "la-verdadera-ciencia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/la-verdadera-ciencia", "text": "La verdadera ciencia enseña, por encima de todo, a dudar y a ser ignorante. (True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.)", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "ignorance", "slug": "ignorance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ignorance" }, { "name": "doubt", "slug": "doubt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/doubt" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#V_:_The_Rationalist_Dissolution", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:21" }, { "id": "de6e2664-f12f-45da-838d-7d16bdbcebae", "slug": "yes-yes-i-see", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life/yes-yes-i-see", "text": "Yes, yes, I see it all! — an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, a profuseness of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwords, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, museums and libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will subsist — for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Miguel de Unamuno", "slug": "miguel-de-unamuno", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno" }, "book": { "title": "Tragic Sense of Life", "slug": "tragic-sense-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/miguel-de-unamuno/tragic-sense-of-life" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "meaning of life", "slug": "meaning-of-life", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life" }, { "name": "civilization", "slug": "civilization", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/civilization" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno#I_:_The_Man_of_Flesh_and_Bone", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:20" }, { "id": "e618fb58-9430-450e-bf20-ad19b6f8fede", "slug": "hypotheses-are-scaffoldings", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections/hypotheses-are-scaffoldings", "text": "Hypotheses are scaffoldings erected in front of a building and then dismantled when the building is finished. They are indispensable for the workman; but you mustn't mistake the scaffolding for the building.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe", "slug": "johann-wolfgang-von-goethe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe" }, "book": { "title": "Maxims and Reflections", "slug": "maxims-and-reflections", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "metaphors", "slug": "metaphors", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/metaphors" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#Maxims_and_Reflections_(1833)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:18" }, { "id": "2929a60e-687a-480b-bb47-9b9a8e59aa42", "slug": "theories-usually-result", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections/theories-usually-result", "text": "Theories usually result from the precipitate reasoning of an impatient mind which would like to be rid of phenomena and replaces them with images, concepts, indeed often with mere words.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe", "slug": "johann-wolfgang-von-goethe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe" }, "book": { "title": "Maxims and Reflections", "slug": "maxims-and-reflections", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "patience", "slug": "patience", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/patience" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#Maxims_and_Reflections_(1833)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:18" }, { "id": "1c33f58d-9bad-421c-983a-915c605a1054", "slug": "the-desire-to-explain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections/the-desire-to-explain", "text": "The desire to explain what is simple by what is complex, what is easy by what is difficult, is a calamity affecting the whole body of science, known, it is true, to men of insight, but not generally admitted.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe", "slug": "johann-wolfgang-von-goethe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe" }, "book": { "title": "Maxims and Reflections", "slug": "maxims-and-reflections", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/maxims-and-reflections" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "simplicity", "slug": "simplicity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/simplicity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe#Maxims_and_Reflections_(1833)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:18" }, { "id": "8fccfa55-615f-449f-ae52-19704c954cf0", "slug": "my-interests-drew", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung/memories-dreams-reflections/my-interests-drew", "text": "My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Carl Jung", "slug": "carl-jung", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung" }, "book": { "title": "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", "slug": "memories-dreams-reflections", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-jung/memories-dreams-reflections" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 72, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Jung#Memories,_Dreams,_Reflections_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:17" }, { "id": "88c92d00-958f-490c-91d9-0d00f895d1b2", "slug": "the-empirical-method", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four/the-empirical-method", "text": "The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Orwell", "slug": "george-orwell", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell" }, "book": { "title": "Nineteen Eighty-Four", "slug": "nineteen-eighty-four", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-orwell/nineteen-eighty-four" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Chapter_9", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:14" }, { "id": "14118ad4-ab62-4f73-8195-2cd8aabf1ed9", "slug": "as-long-as-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/aspects-of-the-novel/as-long-as-learning", "text": "As long as learning is connected with earning, as long as certain jobs can only be reached through exams, so long must we take the examination system seriously. If another ladder to employment was contrived, much so-called education would disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "E.M. Forster", "slug": "em-forster", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster" }, "book": { "title": "Aspects of the Novel", "slug": "aspects-of-the-novel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/em-forster/aspects-of-the-novel" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._M._Forster#Aspects_of_the_Novel_(1927)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:01" }, { "id": "f2f3c2f9-ba26-4390-b858-93d0b58f0875", "slug": "the-science-hangs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia/the-science-hangs", "text": "The science hangs like a gathering fog in a valley, a fog which begins nowhere and goes nowhere, an incidental, unmeaning inconvenience to passers-by.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "A Modern Utopia", "slug": "a-modern-utopia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#A_Modern_Utopia_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:58" }, { "id": "cf77af4b-80d0-49ac-bd90-3cfae82969eb", "slug": "fools-make-researches", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia/fools-make-researches", "text": "Fools make researches and wise men exploit them—that is our earthly way of dealing with the question, and we thank Heaven for an assumed abundance of financially impotent and sufficiently ingenious fools.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "A Modern Utopia", "slug": "a-modern-utopia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#A_Modern_Utopia_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:58" }, { "id": "bb7efcf5-a6be-4e3c-81bd-5581a1a168e6", "slug": "science-has-toiled", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-first-men-in-the-moon/science-has-toiled", "text": "Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use. It is time she held her hand.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The First Men in the Moon", "slug": "the-first-men-in-the-moon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-first-men-in-the-moon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "responsibility", "slug": "responsibility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_First_Men_in_the_Moon_(1901)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:58" }, { "id": "8c1da32e-d0b6-4ef1-9380-ce096d0bf321", "slug": "biologically-the-species", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia/biologically-the-species", "text": "Biologically the species is the accumulation of the experiments of all its successful individuals since the beginning.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "A Modern Utopia", "slug": "a-modern-utopia", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/a-modern-utopia" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#A_Modern_Utopia_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:58" }, { "id": "50683ea0-2e1b-4982-b78c-8425949e246d", "slug": "its-this-accursed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-first-men-in-the-moon/its-this-accursed", "text": "\"It's this accursed science,\" I cried. \"It's the very Devil. The medieval priests and persecutors were right and the Moderns are all wrong. You tamper with it—and it offers you gifts. And directly you take them it knocks you to pieces in some unexpected way. Old passions and new weapons—now it upsets your religion, now it upsets your social ideas, now it whirls you off to desolation and misery!\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The First Men in the Moon", "slug": "the-first-men-in-the-moon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-first-men-in-the-moon" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_First_Men_in_the_Moon_(1901)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:58" }, { "id": "81495267-eb7f-47fc-9e0c-69478aac2ac9", "slug": "i-remember-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-invisible-man/i-remember-that", "text": "I remember that night. It was late at night—in the daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students—and I worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and complete in my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments I have been alone. 'One could make an animal—a tissue—transparent! One could make it invisible! All except the pigments—I could be invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars. 'I could be invisible!' I repeated.To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Invisible Man", "slug": "the-invisible-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-invisible-man" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_Invisible_Man_(1897)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:57" }, { "id": "f3d0bfc1-38f7-455f-adbf-bd635bcde9f2", "slug": "you-see-i-went", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau/you-see-i-went", "text": "You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of true research going. I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got — a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him! You cannot imagine the strange, colourless delight of these intellectual desires!", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "slug": "the-island-of-doctor-moreau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau_(1896)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:56" }, { "id": "b0a20344-7eb0-4521-8ef8-b4645950f268", "slug": "but-said-i-these", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau/but-said-i-these", "text": "\"But,\" said I, \"these things—these animals talk!\"He said that was so, and proceeded to point out that the possibility of vivisection does not stop at a mere physical metamorphosis. A pig may be educated. The mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily. In our growing science of hypnotism we find the promise of a possibility of superseding old inherent instincts by new suggestions, grafting upon or replacing the inherited fixed ideas. Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "slug": "the-island-of-doctor-moreau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau_(1896)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:56" }, { "id": "690570b7-57eb-48db-8f90-748a4e79fed1", "slug": "to-this-day", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau/to-this-day", "text": "To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter. The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "slug": "the-island-of-doctor-moreau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau_(1896)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:56" }, { "id": "51423985-1dc9-42fc-856f-00af69239e4b", "slug": "these-creatures-you", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau/these-creatures-you", "text": "These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes. To that, to the study of the plasticity of living forms, my life has been devoted. I have studied for years, gaining in knowledge as I go. I see you look horrified, and yet I am telling you nothing new. It all lay in the surface of practical anatomy years ago, but no one had the temerity to touch it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "slug": "the-island-of-doctor-moreau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-island-of-doctor-moreau" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau_(1896)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:56" }, { "id": "77990dd4-2cf8-49f1-b7ca-bed87ad7489c", "slug": "a-man-can", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/a-man-can", "text": "A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; he can understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps, an insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merely by being a man. He is himself the animal which he studies. Hence arises the fact which strikes the eye everywhere in the records of ethnology and folk-lore—the fact that the same frigid and detached spirit which leads to success in the study of astronomy or botany leads to disaster in the study of mythology or human origins. It is necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to a microbe; it is not necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men. That same suppression of sympathies, that same waving away of intuitions or guess-work which make a man preternaturally clever in dealing with the stomach of a spider, will make him preternaturally stupid in dealing with the heart of man. He is making himself inhuman in order to understand humanity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "G. Chesterton", "slug": "g-chesterton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton" }, "book": { "title": "Heretics", "slug": "heretics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heretics_(book)#Chapter_XI:_%22Science_and_the_Savages%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:34" }, { "id": "3a1eee60-0d9a-415f-a807-0ea79242ea27", "slug": "but-the-thing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/but-the-thing", "text": "But the thing which is irrational any one can understand. That is why religion came so early into the world and spread so far, while science came so late into the world and has not spread at all. History unanimously attests the fact that it is only mysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the people.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "G. Chesterton", "slug": "g-chesterton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton" }, "book": { "title": "Heretics", "slug": "heretics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heretics_(book)#Chapter_VI:_%22Christmas_and_the_Aesthetes%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:34" }, { "id": "163193b4-ddff-4d39-b9f0-debb06622824", "slug": "but-undoubtedly-it-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/but-undoubtedly-it-was", "text": "But undoubtedly it was to this almost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the great scientific period, which now appears to be closing, owed their enormous power and triumph. If they had brought the heavens down like a house of cards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; their quite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "G. Chesterton", "slug": "g-chesterton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton" }, "book": { "title": "Heretics", "slug": "heretics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heretics_(book)#Chapter_V:_%22Mr._H._G._Wells_and_the_Giants%22", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:34" }, { "id": "b557ed27-20b4-4f88-a802-536c05a46f92", "slug": "i-now-saw", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/i-now-saw", "text": "I now saw, that a science is either deductive or experimental, according as, in the province it deals with, the effects of causes when conjoined, are or are not the sums of the effects which the same causes produce when separate. It followed that politics must be a deductive science. It thus appeared, that both Macaulay and my father were wrong; the one in assimilating the method of philosophising in politics to the purely experimental method of chemistry; while the other, though right in adopting a deductive method, had made a wrong selection of one, having taken as the type of deduction, not the appropriate process, that of the deductive branches of natural philosophy, but the inappropriate one of pure geometry, which, not being a science of causation at all, does not require or admit of any summing-up of effects.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 160, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._5:_A_Crisis_in_My_Mental_History._One_Stage_Onward.", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:31" }, { "id": "fc6d5c19-9e93-4dba-9496-9fee76b84b11", "slug": "most-boys-or-youths", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/most-boys-or-youths", "text": "Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but over-laid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own: and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, however, was not an education of cram. My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 31, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "f4838add-3098-4320-9aed-088df6a427aa", "slug": "he-was-often", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/he-was-often", "text": "He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 28, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "8f5eecbf-ed01-42d1-a224-197168223890", "slug": "i-have-no-remembrance", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/i-have-no-remembrance", "text": "I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed Vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through AEsop's Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates' ad Demonicum and ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 5, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "childhood", "slug": "childhood", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/childhood" }, { "name": "father", "slug": "father", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/father" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "5cae58ce-8387-4afc-bbe7-e0a183e38561", "slug": "in-the-course", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/in-the-course", "text": "In the course of instruction which I have partially retraced, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 30, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "3be3074c-1256-47e5-888b-2c19e05caa34", "slug": "in-these-frequent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/in-these-frequent", "text": "In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 8, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "reading", "slug": "reading", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/reading" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "30554e10-3a5e-44c3-9101-8852eb930c63", "slug": "it-is-also", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/it-is-also", "text": "It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 19, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "23aebb47-146f-4523-bb13-42afdcb4867c", "slug": "if-i-had", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/if-i-had", "text": "If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive memory or were of a remarkably active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 30, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "talent", "slug": "talent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/talent" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "1a217743-ec9f-456b-b2b9-582d137928ac", "slug": "there-is-no-author", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/there-is-no-author", "text": "There is no author to whom my father thought himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young student. I can bear similar testimony in regard to myself. The Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "John Stuart Mill", "slug": "john-stuart-mill", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill" }, "book": { "title": "Autobiography", "slug": "autobiography", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 21, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._1:_Childhood_and_Early_Education", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:30" }, { "id": "c3aca676-a9c5-4267-9d00-798e3ea73b11", "slug": "it-does-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven/the-world-of-ptavvs/it-does-not", "text": "It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Larry Niven", "slug": "larry-niven", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven" }, "book": { "title": "The World Of Ptavvs", "slug": "the-world-of-ptavvs", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/larry-niven/the-world-of-ptavvs" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 40, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Larry_Niven#World_of_Ptavvs_(1966)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:28" }, { "id": "e452448f-a0d5-407d-bc50-5008c6710959", "slug": "theyre-both-magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/equal-rites/theyre-both-magic", "text": "\"They're both magic. If you can't learn to ride an elephant, you can at least learn to ride a horse.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Terry Pratchett", "slug": "terry-pratchett", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett" }, "book": { "title": "Equal Rites", "slug": "equal-rites", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/equal-rites" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "magic", "slug": "magic", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/magic" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Equal_Rites#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:27" }, { "id": "9f58fa0b-34da-4f53-a9d9-a879ade71a5f", "slug": "i-refused-to-make", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/i-refused-to-make", "text": "I refused to make any changes.\n\nI said to them, haughtily, “It isn’t written in the stars that I must make a million dollars, but it is written in the stars that I must be true to my principles.”\n\nSo they fired me. They had someone else do the changes, and on June 26, 1978, I made them remove my name from the book. The project was a fiasco from beginning to end.\n\nWhat does one do in a case like this? One is helpless in the face of cowardly publishers, pliant school boards, and fanatical ignoramuses. All I can do is write essays denouncing creationism with its believe in Adam, Eve, a talking serpent, and a worldwide Flood, all in a six- to ten-thousand-year-old universe, and in a supernatural creation of all the species of life so that they were different from the start.\n\nSome of my essays appeared in as august an organ as The New York Times Magazine and that roused the anger of many Fundamentalists—an anger I am happy and proud to inspire.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "I, Asimov", "slug": "i-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 307, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#I._Asimov:_A_Memoir_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:25" }, { "id": "48b65a90-d795-4159-898b-0a8c8aaf93f2", "slug": "if-an-interaction", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-gods-themselves/if-an-interaction", "text": "If an interaction is too weak to be detectable or to exert influence in any way, then by any operational definition, it doesn't exist.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "The Gods Themselves", "slug": "the-gods-themselves", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-gods-themselves" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 257, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#The_Gods_Themselves_(1972)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:24" }, { "id": "4627c291-30eb-4001-8396-e8ce26f11f2d", "slug": "by-the-time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/by-the-time", "text": "By the time I was reading the Bible, however, science fiction and science books had taught me their version of the universe and I was not ready to accept the creation tale of Genesis or the various miracles described throughout the book. My experience with the Greek myths (and, later, the grimmer Norse myths) made it quite obvious to me that I was reading Hebrew myths.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "I, Asimov", "slug": "i-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 13, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#I._Asimov:_A_Memoir_(1994)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:24" }, { "id": "40d933cd-f920-4140-b6d8-13d396b2e64c", "slug": "does-said-youre", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/prelude-to-foundation/does-said-youre", "text": "Does said, “You’re not a…a believer?”\n\n“I’m a scholar,” said Mycelium with obvious pride.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "Prelude to Foundation", "slug": "prelude-to-foundation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/prelude-to-foundation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 272, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Prelude_to_Foundation_(1988)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:23" }, { "id": "ec5e62d6-041f-4aa1-9c85-1bea6562d1cd", "slug": "for-it-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation/for-it-is-the", "text": "For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "Foundation", "slug": "foundation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Foundation_(1951)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:21" }, { "id": "ec158814-7a0e-4bd7-8337-67c828a50ae8", "slug": "first-you-refused", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation/first-you-refused", "text": "\"First, you refused to admit that there was a menace at all! Then you reposed an absolutely blind faith in the Emperor! Now you've shifted it to Hari Seldon. Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past – never on yourselves. It amounts to a diseased attitude – a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. There seems no doubt ever in your minds that the Emperor is more powerful than you are, or Hari Seldon wiser. And that's wrong, don't you see? It isn't just you. It's the whole Galaxy. Pirenne heard Lord Dorwin's idea of scientific research. Lord Dorwin thought the way to be a good archaeologist was to read all the books on the subject – written by men who were dead for centuries. He thought that the way to solve archaeological puzzles was to weigh the opposing authorities. And Pirenne listened and made no objections. Don't you see that there's something wrong with that? And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here,considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see? Here in the Periphery they've lost nuclear power. In Gamma Andromeda, a power plant has undergone meltdown because of poor repairs, and the Chancellor of the Empire complains that nuclear technicians are scarce. And the solution? To train new ones? Never! Instead they're to restrict nuclear power. Don't you see? It's Galaxy wide. It's a worship of the past. It's a deterioration – a stagnation!\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "Foundation", "slug": "foundation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" }, { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Foundation_(1951)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:21" }, { "id": "968769b2-39ba-4809-aea9-0bc6819fc063", "slug": "q-you-do-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation/q-you-do-not", "text": "Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one?\n\nA. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.\n\nQ. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth?\n\nA. I am.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "Foundation", "slug": "foundation", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/foundation" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#Foundation_(1951)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:21" }, { "id": "63ed2893-6f90-45f5-8ab0-06fc566fce34", "slug": "gillbret-said-statistics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-stars-like-dust/gillbret-said-statistics", "text": "Gillbret said, “Statistics show that one out of three stars has a planetary system.”\n\nBiron nodded. It was a well-worn statistic. Every child was taught that in elementary Galactography.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "The Stars, Like Dust", "slug": "the-stars-like-dust", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-stars-like-dust" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 142, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#The_Stars,_Like_Dust_(1951)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:20" }, { "id": "a750a7b7-0912-4e48-a948-4fe8c78029f7", "slug": "there-isnt-an-instinct", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun/there-isnt-an-instinct", "text": "There isn’t an instinct around that can’t give way to a good, persistent education. Not in human beings, where instincts are weak anyway. In fact, if you go about it right, education gets easier with each generation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "The Naked Sun", "slug": "the-naked-sun", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 331, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#The_Naked_Sun_(1957)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:19" }, { "id": "ea8472d0-8b12-4b5f-a76e-98e902a830d2", "slug": "i-accept-nothing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot/i-accept-nothing", "text": "I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason, or else it is worthless.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "I, Robot", "slug": "i-robot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 52, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#I,_Robot_(1950)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:18" }, { "id": "a3b8b840-4925-4607-97d4-01c6a3c47155", "slug": "the-machine-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot/the-machine-is-only", "text": "The machine is only a tool after all, which can help humanity progress faster by taking some of the burdens of calculations and interpretations off its back. The task of the human brain remains what it has always been; that of discovering new data to be analyzed, and of devising new concepts to be tested.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Isaac Asimov", "slug": "isaac-asimov", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov" }, "book": { "title": "I, Robot", "slug": "i-robot", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-robot" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 187, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#I,_Robot_(1950)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:18" }, { "id": "c4f348c8-163f-4711-8033-389838eb8296", "slug": "like-the-atom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/like-the-atom", "text": "Like the atom bomb, it arose out of equally academic research. Never, gentlemen, underestimate science. I doubt if there is a single field of study so theoretical, so remote from what is laughingly called everyday life, that it may not one day produce something that will shake the world.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 500, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Collected_Stories_of_Arthur_C._Clarke_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:17" }, { "id": "b71a7894-9a8b-4ae1-a2e0-b848bf5f57fb", "slug": "it-is-hardly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/it-is-hardly", "text": "It is hardly necessary for me to say that I do not believe in the supernatural; everything that happened has a perfectly rational explanation, obvious to any man with the slightest knowledge of psychology.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 786, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Collected_Stories_of_Arthur_C._Clarke_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:17" }, { "id": "72b0ef4b-ecf6-42d8-9dba-54e4ad2116c2", "slug": "though-ive-often", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/though-ive-often", "text": "Though I've often made fun of the scientists, they've freed us forever from the stagnation that was overtaking your race.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 298, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_Collected_Stories_of_Arthur_C._Clarke_(2001)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:17" }, { "id": "490e3d4f-1975-41ae-9030-d1e3335f28f6", "slug": "this-project-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/sunstorm/this-project-was", "text": "This project was no longer mathematics; it was engineering.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "Sunstorm", "slug": "sunstorm", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/sunstorm" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 152, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "mathematics", "slug": "mathematics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/mathematics" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#Sunstorm_(2005)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:17" }, { "id": "883b3db1-b3cc-4ae6-9b17-a46159c7c2e7", "slug": "the-search-for", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/3001-the-final-odyssey/the-search-for", "text": "The search for alien artefacts in the Solar System should be a perfectly legitimate branch of science ('exoarchaeology'?). Unfortunately, it has been largely discredited by claims that such evidence has already been found - and has been deliberately suppressed by NASA! p. 97, Acknowledgements", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "3001 The Final Odyssey", "slug": "3001-the-final-odyssey", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/3001-the-final-odyssey" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#3001:_The_Final_Odyssey_(1997)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:16" }, { "id": "43b30a0c-8e6a-4f0e-8fd2-1d9bf4b01b9d", "slug": "the-fact-was", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-city-and-the-stars/the-fact-was", "text": "The fact was that he suffered from an incurable malady which, it seemed, attacked only Homo sapiens among all the intelligent races of the universe. That disease was religious mania.\n\nThroughout the earlier part of its history, the human race had brought forth an endless succession of prophets, seers, messiahs, and evangelists who convinced themselves and their followers that to them alone were the secrets of the universe revealed. Some of them succeeded in establishing religions which survived for many generations and influenced billions of men; others were forgotten even before their deaths.\n\nThe rise of science, which with monotonous regularity refuted the cosmologies of the prophets and produced miracles which they could never match, eventually destroyed all these faiths. It did not destroy the awe, not the reverence and humility, which all intelligent beings felt as they contemplated the stupendous universe in which they found themselves. What it did weaken, and finally obliterate, were the countless religions, each of which claimed with unbelievable arrogance, that it was the sole repository of the truth and that its millions of rivals and predecessors were all mistaken.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Arthur C. Clarke", "slug": "arthur-c-clarke", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke" }, "book": { "title": "The City And The Stars", "slug": "the-city-and-the-stars", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-city-and-the-stars" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 99, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#The_City_and_the_Stars_(1956)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:15" }, { "id": "5fe71eb5-c67b-4367-8ba1-a69452e1a2b6", "slug": "professor-simon-newcomb", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine/professor-simon-newcomb", "text": "Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a Three-Dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four—if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Time Machine", "slug": "the-time-machine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:08" }, { "id": "4e1d4eea-c5db-4f1b-8a1b-5efb4da157c3", "slug": "are-you-so-sure", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine/are-you-so-sure", "text": "Are you so sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But now about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Time Machine", "slug": "the-time-machine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:08" }, { "id": "26a57e77-f62b-4e17-9f3d-0b127e1c06c0", "slug": "space-as-our", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine/space-as-our", "text": "Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to these planes, each at right angle to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly—why not another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to construct a Four Dimensional geometry.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.G. Wells", "slug": "hg-wells", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells" }, "book": { "title": "The Time Machine", "slug": "the-time-machine", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hg-wells/the-time-machine" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine#Quotes", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:08" }, { "id": "0eed137d-e58b-4870-9cac-3e50758eb47f", "slug": "science-at-bottom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report/science-at-bottom", "text": "Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "H.L. Mencken", "slug": "hl-mencken", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken" }, "book": { "title": "Minority Report", "slug": "minority-report", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/hl-mencken/minority-report" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken#Minority_Report_:_H.L._Mencken's_Notebooks_(1956)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:38:03" }, { "id": "1fadce22-16df-49d1-9902-7bfab4195db9", "slug": "scientists-dream-about", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-a-michener/space/scientists-dream-about", "text": "Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "James A. Michener", "slug": "james-a-michener", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-a-michener" }, "book": { "title": "Space", "slug": "space", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-a-michener/space" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_A._Michener#Space_(1982)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:53" }, { "id": "f6b2514e-07ba-4c45-a06e-24dedd7dafb8", "slug": "or-they-observe", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/or-they-observe", "text": "Or... they observe an astronomic phenomenon... an eclipse of the moon, and... suppose... this... is perceived simultaneously from all points of the earth. That is not altogether true, since the propagation of light is not instantaneous; if absolute exactitude were desired, there would be a correction... according to a complicated rule.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "f1122413-3d5d-4e6d-b400-bd0801400dcc", "slug": "now-what-is-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/now-what-is-science", "text": "Now what is science? ...it is before all a classification, a manner of bringing together facts which appearances separate, though they are bound together by some natural and hidden kinship. Science, in other words, is a system of relations. ...it is in relations alone that objectivity must be sought. ...it is relations alone which can be regarded as objective.\n\nExternal objects... are really objects and not fleeting and fugitive appearances, because they are not only groups of sensations, but groups cemented by a constant bond. It is this bond, and this bond alone, which is the object in itself, and this bond is a relation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._11:_Science_and_Reality", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "f104af32-85dc-44dc-a913-1cbb4a6946a3", "slug": "one-need-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/one-need-only", "text": "One need only open the eyes to see that the conquests of industry which have enriched so many practical men would never have seen the light, if these practical men alone had existed and if they had not been preceded by unselfish devotees who died poor, who never thought of utility, and yet had a guide far other than caprice.\n\nAs Mach says, these devotees have spared their successors the trouble of thinking.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#The_Value_of_Science_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "eb8c9eb8-110f-46a1-8270-430b5144efb8", "slug": "this-shows-perhaps", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/this-shows-perhaps", "text": "[This] shows, perhaps, why we have tried to put all physical phenomena into the same frame. But that can not pass for a definition of simultaneity, since this hypothetical intelligence, even if it existed, would be for us impenetrable. It is... necessary to seek something else.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "da8d7817-bc1b-476a-ad04-e32db6f9ef77", "slug": "when-an-astronomer", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/when-an-astronomer", "text": "When an astronomer tells me that some stellar phenomenon, which his telescope reveals to him at this moment, happened... fifty years ago... I... ask... how he has measured the velocity of light.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "bfadaa76-437c-4a4b-a0b4-16aaf5e1057b", "slug": "in-physical-reality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/in-physical-reality", "text": "In physical reality one cause does not produce a given effect, but a multitude of distinct causes contribute to produce it, without our having any means of discriminating the part of each of them. ...[C]auses which have produced a certain effect will never be reproduced except approximately.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "bc109500-1936-4624-8d90-d782cb5231af", "slug": "he-has-begun", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/he-has-begun", "text": "He has begun by supposing that light has a constant velocity... the same in all directions. This... could never be verified directly by experiment... The postulate... resembling the ... furnishes us with a new rule for the investigation of simultaneity.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "b8f43ff4-58de-4c6a-8e94-f452a13a5d66", "slug": "w-e-should-say", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/w-e-should-say", "text": "[W]e should say: 'Causes almost identical take almost the same time to produce almost the same effects.'", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "a5ac5b78-51f6-4313-8b2a-07de1566053a", "slug": "we-have-not-a", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/we-have-not-a", "text": "We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them.\n\n...We ...choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: \"The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "a53bd6bc-dd36-43f6-ab7d-98dea9fa8568", "slug": "where-speculation-ends", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology/where-speculation-ends", "text": "Where speculation ends — in real life — there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, our difficulties begin only when we set about the observation and the arrangement — the real depiction — of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Karl Marx", "slug": "karl-marx", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx" }, "book": { "title": "The German Ideology", "slug": "the-german-ideology", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#The_German_Ideology_(1845-1846)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "98262bf9-4b5f-4925-84fe-45e8bf8c9300", "slug": "it-is-only", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/it-is-only", "text": "It is only through science and art that civilization is of value. Some have wondered at the formula: science for its own sake; an yet it is as good as life for its own sake, if life is only misery; and even as happiness for its own sake, if we do not believe that all pleasures are of the same quality...\n\nEvery act should have an aim. We must suffer, we must work, we must pay for our place at the game, but this is for seeing's sake; or at the very least that others may one day see.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._11:_Science_and_Reality", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "6783eb89-4a12-42d4-a14b-cbbc9a43d933", "slug": "h-ave-we-really", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/h-ave-we-really", "text": "[H]ave we really the right to speak of the cause of a phenomenon?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "59460d85-d31b-467a-8485-0e48c71b2b0a", "slug": "roemer-used-eclipses", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/roemer-used-eclipses", "text": "Roemer used eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter, and sought how much the event fell behind its prediction. But... this prediction [is] made... by... astronomic laws; for instance Newton's... [T]he velocity of light... is adopted, such that the astronomic laws compatible with this value may be as simple as possible.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "53ee7dd2-baaa-4d14-86db-ff81fa25844a", "slug": "scientists-believe-there", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/scientists-believe-there", "text": "Scientists believe there is a hierarchy of facts and that among them may be made a judicious choice. They are right, since otherwise there would be no science...", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#The_Value_of_Science_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "3905a9b1-01c8-4515-bf1d-3e20957e1bdd", "slug": "what-we-call", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/what-we-call", "text": "What we call objective reality is, in the last analysis, what is common to many thinking beings, and could be common to all; this common part, we shall see, can only be the harmony expressed by mathematical laws. It is this harmony... which is the sole objective reality, the only truth we can attain; and when I add that the universal harmony of the world is the source of all beauty, it will be understood what price we should attach to the slow and difficult progress which little by little enables us to know it better.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "truth", "slug": "truth", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Introduction", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "324466a3-056e-42d4-8bd8-29c538bf1d1d", "slug": "all-laws-are", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/all-laws-are", "text": "All laws are... deduced from experiment; but to enunciate them, a special language is needful... ordinary language is too poor...\n\nThis... is one reason why the physicist can not do without mathematics; it furnishes him the only language he can speak. And a well-made language is no indifferent thing;\n\n...the analyst, who pursues a purely esthetic aim, helps create, just by that, a language more fit to satisfy the physicist.\n\n...law springs from experiment, but not immediately. Experiment is individual, the law deduced from it is general; experiment is only approximate, the law is precise...\n\nIn a word, to get the law from experiment, it is necessary to generalize... But how generalize? ...in this choice what shall guide us?\n\nIt can only be analogy. ...What has taught us to know the true profound analogies, those the eyes do not see but reason divines?\n\nIt is the mathematical spirit, which disdains matter to cling only to pure form.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._5:_Analysis_and_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "31d3cf95-4d3e-4d75-873b-b0a55de88f03", "slug": "mathematics-have-a-triple", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/mathematics-have-a-triple", "text": "Mathematics have a triple aim. They must furnish an instrument for the study of nature. But that is not all: they have a philosophic aim and, I dare maintain, an esthetic aim. They must aid the philosopher to fathom the notions of number, of space, of time. And above all, their adepts find therein delights analogous to those given by painting and music. They admire the delicate harmony of numbers and forms; they marvel when a new discovery opens to them an unexpected perspective; and has not the joy they thus feel the esthetic character, even though the senses take no part therein? Only a privileged few are called to enjoy it fully, it is true, but is not this the case for all the noblest arts?\n\nThis is why I do not hesitate to say that mathematics deserve to be cultivated for their own sake, and the theories inapplicable to physics as well as the others. Even if the physical aim and the esthetic aim were not united, we ought not to sacrifice either.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._5:_Analysis_and_Physics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "2b8cf300-0aae-4d21-b6fc-7ed505c57659", "slug": "a-stronomers-define-duration", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/a-stronomers-define-duration", "text": "[A]stronomers... define duration in the following way: time... so defined that Newton's law and that of vis viva [or of the ] may be verified. Newton's law is an experimental truth... only approximate... [W]e still have only a definition by approximation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "062b1243-0660-42cd-87fc-b3f3ea161946", "slug": "w-hat-postulate-do-we-implicitly", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science/w-hat-postulate-do-we-implicitly", "text": "[W]hat postulate do we implicitly admit? It is that the duration of two identical phenomena is the same; or... that the same causes take the same time to produce the same effects. ...Is it impossible that experiment may some day contradict our postulate?", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Henri Poincaré", "slug": "henri-poincare", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare" }, "book": { "title": "The Value of Science", "slug": "the-value-of-science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/henri-poincare/the-value-of-science" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "time", "slug": "time", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Ch._2:_The_Measure_of_Time", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:49" }, { "id": "d7896d9b-ea30-41f0-92cc-0ff4dd222bf9", "slug": "i-had-been", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/i-had-been", "text": "I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don’t reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don’t take no stock in mathematics, anyway.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Mark Twain", "slug": "mark-twain", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain" }, "book": { "title": "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "slug": "the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/mark-twain/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn#Chapter_4", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:47" }, { "id": "b8c511f8-e806-40af-bb82-b7233f42b048", "slug": "to-get-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster/to-get-the", "text": "To get [the breakthroughs on the \"Technologies needed\" list] ready soon enough to make a difference, governments need to . . . [q]uintuple clean energy and climate-related R&D over the next decade. . . .", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bill Gates", "slug": "bill-gates", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates" }, "book": { "title": "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster", "slug": "how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 200, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#How_to_Avoid_a_Climate_Disaster_(2021)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:43" }, { "id": "0cb048e6-9e85-4bc1-9e66-adf9ee66bacb", "slug": "the-obvious-mathematical", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/the-road-ahead/the-obvious-mathematical", "text": "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Bill Gates", "slug": "bill-gates", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates" }, "book": { "title": "The Road Ahead", "slug": "the-road-ahead", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/bill-gates/the-road-ahead" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 265, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#The_Road_Ahead_(1995)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:43" }, { "id": "96646b48-8722-4241-aa18-965fce1df83b", "slug": "i-took-an-estimated", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry/dave-barrys-only-travel-guide-youll-ever-need/i-took-an-estimated", "text": "I took an estimated two thousand years of high school French, and when I finally got to France, I discovered that I didn't know one single phrase that was actually useful in a real-life French situation.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Dave Barry", "slug": "dave-barry", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry" }, "book": { "title": "Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need", "slug": "dave-barrys-only-travel-guide-youll-ever-need", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/dave-barry/dave-barrys-only-travel-guide-youll-ever-need" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dave_Barry#Dave_Barry's_Only_Travel_Guide_You'll_Ever_Need_(1991)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:39" }, { "id": "d9c820e3-d74a-4cda-9d44-2fb4fa574e15", "slug": "for-the-inquisition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning/for-the-inquisition", "text": "For the inquisition of Final Causes is barren, and like a virgin consecrated to God produces nothing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Advancement of Learning", "slug": "the-advancement-of-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#The_Advancement_of_Learning_(1605)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:38" }, { "id": "b5b7610c-9879-41b4-8e4d-0f746aaf9292", "slug": "as-we-divided", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning/as-we-divided", "text": "As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Advancement of Learning", "slug": "the-advancement-of-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#The_Advancement_of_Learning_(1605)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:38" }, { "id": "add71613-9410-4423-b4b3-7b32e9993d29", "slug": "i-could-not", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning/i-could-not", "text": "I could not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond others; but yet not more willing than to have others go beyond me again: which may the better appear by this, that I have propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Advancement of Learning", "slug": "the-advancement-of-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "humility", "slug": "humility", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/humility" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#The_Advancement_of_Learning_(1605)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:38" }, { "id": "a4dd1900-2330-45e2-a28c-30216fcb0cc9", "slug": "the-natural-philosophy", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning/the-natural-philosophy", "text": "The natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me... in particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those persons. Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province; but because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Advancement of Learning", "slug": "the-advancement-of-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#The_Advancement_of_Learning_(1605)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:38" }, { "id": "6240aee7-7a01-4739-b802-11b03725fc07", "slug": "this-misplacing-hath", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning/this-misplacing-hath", "text": "This misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Francis Bacon", "slug": "francis-bacon", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon" }, "book": { "title": "The Advancement of Learning", "slug": "the-advancement-of-learning", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/francis-bacon/the-advancement-of-learning" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon#The_Advancement_of_Learning_(1605)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:38" }, { "id": "d055691f-cea3-406f-a470-56a1db07d7ee", "slug": "let-this-serve", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/let-this-serve", "text": "Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first sketch it roughly, and then later fill in the details. But it would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are due; for any one can add what is lacking. And we must also remember what has been said before, and not look for precision in all things alike, but in each class of things such precision as accords with the subject-matter, and so much as is appropriate to the inquiry. For a carpenter and a geometer investigate the right angle in different ways; the former does so in so far as the right angle is useful for his work, while the latter inquires what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We must act in the same way, then, in all other matters as well, that our main task may not be subordinated to minor questions. Nor must we demand the cause in all matters alike; it is enough in some cases that the fact be well established, as in the case of the first principles; the fact is the primary thing or first principle. Now of first principles we see some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of principles we must try to investigate in the natural way, and we must take pains to state them definitely, since they have a great influence on what follows. For the beginning is thought to be more than half of the whole, and many of the questions we ask are cleared up by it.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Nicomachean Ethics", "slug": "nicomachean-ethics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Book_I", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:37" }, { "id": "44616352-7131-4325-b4c5-bfc5c5f272e8", "slug": "for-the-things", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/for-the-things", "text": "For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Nicomachean Ethics", "slug": "nicomachean-ethics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:37" }, { "id": "0efcdd84-b897-4e10-be60-8bc2881c4bcf", "slug": "it-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/it-is-the", "text": "It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Nicomachean Ethics", "slug": "nicomachean-ethics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Book_I", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:37" }, { "id": "c06a7dda-a562-4a65-8c3d-bba6b672579a", "slug": "but-as-more", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/but-as-more", "text": "But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. ... This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Metaphysics", "slug": "metaphysics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Metaphysics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:36" }, { "id": "7bff0544-e7b3-4696-a700-dc1902bb7ec2", "slug": "for-it-is-owing", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/for-it-is-owing", "text": "For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom, for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they philosophized order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. — Metaphysics by Aristotle – Book 1, ClassicalWisdom.com", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Metaphysics", "slug": "metaphysics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 4, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Metaphysics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:36" }, { "id": "7781e17e-f70a-4e10-aa07-dc35a6d769da", "slug": "those-who-assert", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics/those-who-assert", "text": "Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "Metaphysics", "slug": "metaphysics", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/metaphysics" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "beauty", "slug": "beauty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#Metaphysics", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:36" }, { "id": "3750f43f-67c6-41ad-955b-9cee6fc874aa", "slug": "sound-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/de-anima/sound-is-the", "text": "Sound is the motion of that which is able to be moved, after the manner in which those things are moved, that rebound from smooth bodies, when any one strikes them. Not every thing... sounds... but it is necessary, that the body which is struck should be equable, that the air may collectively rebound, and be shaken. The differences, however, of bodies which sound, are manifested in the sound, which is in energy; for, as colours are not perceived without light, so neither are the sharp and the flat perceived without sound. But these things are asserted metaphorically, from those which pertain to the touch; for the sharp moves the sense much in a short time, but the flat a little in a long time. The sharp, therefore, is not rapid, and the flat slow; but such a motion is produced of the one, on account of celerity, and of the other on account of slowness, that, also, which is perceived in the touch, appears to be analogous to the acute and obtuse, for the acute, as it were, stings; but the obtuse, as it were, impels: because the one moves in a short, but the other in a long time. Hence it happens that the one is swift but the other slow. Let it therefore be thus determined concerning sound.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Aristotle", "slug": "aristotle", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle" }, "book": { "title": "De Anima", "slug": "de-anima", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/de-anima" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 62, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle#De_Anima", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:37:36" }, { "id": "8ad3eafe-e46c-48af-85da-b95bde98cc5d", "slug": "what-really-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/dirk-gentlys-holistic-detective-agency/what-really-is-the", "text": "\"What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?\"\n\nThis question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.\n\nRichard continued, \"What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself.\"", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Douglas Adams", "slug": "douglas-adams", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams" }, "book": { "title": "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", "slug": "dirk-gentlys-holistic-detective-agency", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/douglas-adams/dirk-gentlys-holistic-detective-agency" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "knowledge", "slug": "knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Dirk_Gently's_Holistic_Detective_Agency_(1987)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:37" }, { "id": "8ee3f876-ee39-428d-9e6f-39d2b15aafb0", "slug": "you-see-lots", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/pygmalion/you-see-lots", "text": "You see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There's always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Bernard Shaw", "slug": "george-bernard-shaw", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw" }, "book": { "title": "Pygmalion", "slug": "pygmalion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/pygmalion" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "talent", "slug": "talent", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/talent" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#Pygmalion_(1912)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:36" }, { "id": "fdbab9e1-f0d4-46f5-a043-3f98f85b5172", "slug": "you-have-learnt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/you-have-learnt", "text": "You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "George Bernard Shaw", "slug": "george-bernard-shaw", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw" }, "book": { "title": "Major Barbara", "slug": "major-barbara", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#Major_Barbara_(1905)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:35" }, { "id": "b0809c58-f713-4820-bb48-65cf4a00ad55", "slug": "softmindedness-often-invades", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love/softmindedness-often-invades", "text": "Softmindedness often invades religion. ... Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read \"Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God.\" This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. ... Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Martin Luther King, Jr.", "slug": "martin-luther-king-jr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr" }, "book": { "title": "Strength to Love", "slug": "strength-to-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "religion", "slug": "religion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion" }, { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Strength_to_Love_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:29" }, { "id": "8009544c-c361-471c-b2a9-e7a2e5a1ebea", "slug": "when-confronted-by-midnight", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love/when-confronted-by-midnight", "text": "When confronted by midnight in the social order we have in the past turned to science for help. And little wonder! On so many occasions science has saved us. When we were in the midnight of physical limitation and material inconvenience, science lifted us to the bright morning of physical and material comfort. When we were in the midnight of crippling ignorance and superstition, science brought us to the daybreak of the free and open mind. When we were in the midnight of dread plagues and diseases, science, through surgery, sanitation, and the wonder drugs, ushered in the bright day of physical health, thereby prolonging our lives and making for greater security and physical well-being. How naturally we turn to science in a day when the problems of the world are so ghastly and ominous. But alas! science cannot now rescue us, for even the scientist is lost in the terrible midnight of our age. Indeed, science gave us the very instruments that threaten to bring universal suicide.'''", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Martin Luther King, Jr.", "slug": "martin-luther-king-jr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr" }, "book": { "title": "Strength to Love", "slug": "strength-to-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Strength_to_Love_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:29" }, { "id": "5120b9ec-8027-4d9c-ae76-efcb1328f311", "slug": "the-means-by-which", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love/the-means-by-which", "text": "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Martin Luther King, Jr.", "slug": "martin-luther-king-jr", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr" }, "book": { "title": "Strength to Love", "slug": "strength-to-love", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/martin-luther-king-jr/strength-to-love" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "science", "slug": "science", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science" }, { "name": "morality", "slug": "morality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Strength_to_Love_(1963)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:32:29" } ] }