Quotes about science

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.

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed.

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.

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

Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.

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.

Though today's quantum theory shows no sign of weakness, someday it may collapse.

Physicists, for all their odd notions, are basically a conservative lot.

One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality.

Leave spells and prayers to priests and septons and bend your wits to learning truths a man can trust in.

The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter.

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.