Scientific Discovery Quotes

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It's really counterintuitive.

If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.

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…. 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

Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

People who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.

It's always a combination of physics and poetry that I find inspiring. It's hard to wrap your head around things like the Hubble scope.

I would love to be remembered for ridding the world of disease, but my knowledge of science comes from episodes of 'Nova' and shows on the Discovery Channel. I don't think a superficial understanding of shark behavior and black holes can help cure diseases.

I've been thinking about the distorted view of science that prevails in our culture. I've been wondering about this, because our civilization is completely dependent on science and high technology, yet most of us are alienated from science.

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilization.

Man must rise above the Earth -- to the top of the atmosphere and beyond -- for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives

Evolution doesn't care whether you believe in it or not, no more than gravity does. I want to rekindle excitement over what we've achieved as a species with the space program. We can't afford to regress back to the days of superstition.

Since the Renaissance, a concept called 'progress' has been baked into our society. Progress - founded on an accumulation of knowledge through experience (and in the case of science, through experiment). To build on the past rather than endlessly relive it. That's what separates us from the beasts.

My dream was to be a 'scientist' even before I knew what a scientist did.

North American society could not have reached its state of high development and modernity had it not been an open society.

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

Only when I began studying chemical engineering at Oregon Agricultural College did I realize that I myself might discover something new about the nature of the world.

The space station is the most unique laboratory we've ever built. The reason we have it is to do research on materials, people, medical matters, pharmaceuticals - the possibilities are nearly endless.

When I contemplate the immense advances in sciences and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches

Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.

I don't like honors. I'm appreciated for the work that I did, and for people who appreciate it, and I notice that other physicists use my work. I don't need anything else. I don't think there's any sense to anything else.... I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things. The honors are unreal to me. I don't believe in honors... I can't stand it, it hurts me.

Scientists must venture outside their comfort zones to show the public how cool - and how important - their work really is.

Our work on C. elegans emphasized the benefits of sharing large amounts of information. We took a global approach to discover the mechanisms that led to the development of the worm.