Billy West Quotes

My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.

Peres Fobes, Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, … proposes to exhibit a COURSE of LECTURES upon NATURAL PHILOSOPHY and ASTRONOMY ... illustrated by a Variety of curious and entertaining Experiments. ... The Course will consist of Twelve Lectures, two or three to be exhibited per Week, at the Philosophy-Room in College. The Price Twelve Shillings for the whole course, or One Shilling and Three Pence for a single Lecture

I don’t think anything about Einstein’s theory because I don’t understand it.

I'm just interested in science, and I try to keep track of what's going on and get my head around it - inflation, the multiverse, whatever. It's very hard for me because I don't have a scientific background, and I wasn't any good at science at school, but all of that stuff I just find incredibly attractive and fascinating.

The fundamental message of the Wu Tang music is as vast as the ocean in all reality, but it's still a straight path. You can take one lyric and by researching what that lyric is giving out to you, it should give you more than a day's worth of school, maybe three days' worth of school.

Secrets are the blood of life. Every big thing is a secret, even when you know it, because you never know all of it. If you can know everything about anything, it is not worth knowing.

Outside of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as the next person.

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

... the more you know about life, the more you get out of it.

I would have offered you a forest of truth, but you wish to speak of a single leaf

Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't.

I think we can safely assume that no one understands quantum mechanics.

There is so much more to understand.

The more I see, the less I know.

You're always learning about this thing everytime you pick it up

Deep is the well of truth and long does it take to know what has fallen into its depths.

Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra. ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful things; the Freeman was he who learned useless things. This still remains the ideal of many noble men of science, in the sense they do desire truth as the great Greeks desired it; and their attitude is an external protest against vulgarity of utilitarianism.

Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known. This was the sound conclusion of the Academic sceptics, who were the least surly of philosophers.

To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

Wherever learning breeds specialists, the sum of human culture is enhanced thereby. That is the illusion and consolation of specialists.

Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

Newton did not know what happened to the apple, and I can prove this when the next eclipse comes.

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.

You need an entire life just to know about tomatoes.