Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks but the task of science.

My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.

The Gay Science, section 108

We have lived in a world where the discoveries of physics and genetics are far more awe-inspiring, as well as infinitely more liberating, than the claims of any religion.

Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation.

If cathedrals had been universities If dungeons of the Inquisition had been laboratories If Christians had believed in character instead of creed If they had taken from the bible only that which is GOOD and thrown away the wicked and absurd If temple domes had been observatories If priests had been philosophers If missionaries had taught useful arts instead of bible lore If astrology had been astronomy If the black arts had been chemistry If superstition had been science If religion had been humanity The world then would be a heaven filled with love, and liberty and joy

Scientific literacy is one of the underpinnings of everything I do. It's why I work with schools. It's why I teach at university. I do a lot of outreach to try and improve general scientific literacy, but the core of all scientific literacy is just literacy.

I think, you know, the thing everybody really wants to know anyway is not what the theory of relativity is, but I think what we all really want to know anyways, is whether we're loved or not.

Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. 5

Knowledge always liberates.

Philosophy is the science which considers truth.

Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.

Indeed, at hearing the news that 'the old god is dead', we philosophers and 'free spirits' feel illuminated by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, forebodings, expectation - finally the horizon seems clear again, even if not bright; finally our ships may set out again, set out to face any danger; every daring of the lover of knowledge is allowed again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an 'open sea'.

Freedom can never be comprehended, nor even can insight into it be gained.

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.

All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place.

Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.

The doors of the world are opened to people who can read.

I don't think the world objectively exists the way we think it exists. There's a constant sort of storytelling process.

History is philosophy teaching by experience.

There are four great sciences, without which the other sciences cannot be known nor a knowledge of things secured ... Of these sciences the gate and key is mathematics ... He who is ignorant of this [mathematics] cannot know the other sciences nor the affairs of this world.

History teaches everything, even the future.