Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

Ideas are 10 a penny. It's the execution that's the hard thing to do. House is standing up against a tide of sentiment and emotionalism over reason that threatens to engulf this world. When you think about it, a rationalist, a man of science and reason, is in a pretty lonely position.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

In my opinion, it helps enormously to know why something is true, rather than being told it is true, for why should you believe me? Never believe anything on the authority of a single person but seek confirmation — and reason is the best confirmation

Happily I had very early learned the fallacy of building much on logic and verbal argument. Single sets of truths I knew to be as little conclusive in theology as in physics; and, in one as in the other, no theory to be worth anything, however plausibly backed up with Scripture texts or facts, which was not gathered bona fide from the analysis of all the attainable phenomena, and verified wherever possible by experiment.

Science adjusts its views based on what's observed Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

Science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.

The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.

Experience by itself is not science.

My colleagues have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

The specious figments of genius, and the erratic flights of philosophy, may excite our wonder, but they cannot stand the ordeal of scrutiny, or the Lydian touch of experiment.

If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

The beauty of science hugely outranks the charms of superstition.

Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it.

[One's] inability to invalidate your hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.

If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.

We must have the real thing before we can have a science of a thing.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, 'Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'

Science is the most reliable guide in life.