Scientific Endeavor Quotes

Science knows only one commandment—contribute to science.

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes.

Science is among the most profoundly human of our activities. Far from being subsumed by the dehumanising effects of technology, science, in fact, remains our last stand against it.

It's very important for us to see that science is done by people, not just brains but whole human beings, and sometimes at great cost.

There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. (Preface to the French edition).

I am only a physicist with nothing material to show for my labours. I have never even seen the ionosphere, although I have worked on the subject for thirty years. That does show how lucky people can be. If there had been no ionosphere I would not have been standing here this morning.

Knowing how contented, free, and joyful is life in the world of science, one fervently wishes that many would enter its portals.

Empirical sciences prosecuted purely for their own sake, and without philosophic tendency are like a face without eyes.

An inborn tendency toward science turning it into a lifelong commitment.

Real science is a very risky activity; people can spend their whole life working on a theory that doesn’t work out.

Cassini is different -- it's a mission of enormous scope and is being conducted in grand style. It is much more sophisticated than Voyager, ... I can't say it's got that flavor of romance, though. Voyager was very romantic. Cassini is spectacular.

[Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.

Scientific work will never stop, and it would be terrible if it did. If there were no more problems, you would put your hands in your pockets and your head on a pillow and would work no more. In science rest is stagnation, rest is death.

If there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself. Men and women are not content to comfort themselves with tales of gods and giants, or to confine their thoughts to the daily affairs of life; they also build telescopes and satellites and accelerators and sit at their desks for endless hours working out the meaning of the data they gather.

We need to ask ourselves: What use is our scientific endeavor and innovation when they are inaccessible to the people who need them the most? It is only when the benefits of research reach the person on the lowest rung of the economic ladder that it can be considered to have delivered true value.

I congratulate you both on a fine piece of work which I am sure will ultimately prove of importance. I am personally very much interested in your results... In the past I have tried a number of experiments... but without any success.

Science is analytical, descriptive, informative. Man does not live by bread alone, but by science he attempts to do so. Hence the deadliness of all that is purely scientific.

The goal of scientists is you hope that the thing you're working on is bigger than the thing you're pipetting into that tube at that moment.

A scientist is as weak and human as any man, but the pursuit of science may ennoble him even against his will.

Science does not mean an idle resting upon a body of certain knowledge; it means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic intuition may apprehend, but which the intellect can never fully grasp.

One aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success.

The reality of this [scientific] "objectivity" is that it is intended to conceal the truth, the reality of colonialism, exploitation, racism and imperialism; it is intended to prevent scientists from taking effective action by pretending that partisanship contradicts scientific endeavor, it is intended to make us "neutral" when to do so commits us—consciously or not—to the status quo, to the side of the existing structure of domination.

I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worth while task of science.

Without denying the value of scientific endeavor, there is a striking absurdity in committing billions to reach the moon where no people live, while only a fraction of that amount is appropriated to service the densely populated slums.