Sunday, August 17, 2008

Previously in Favourite Quotations (2)

There is real doubt whether the actual process of evolution is predictable. It may be history rather than science - Francis Crick

'Explain' is one of the slipperiest words in the entire philosophy of science - Donald Fleming

Whether the laws of nature were initially imposed by some divine decree, whether the possibility of other worlds ruled by other laws can be entertained, whether the movement proceeds from the general to the particular, or vice versa, this world exists & functions - Francois Jacob

Those whom we quote often seem to express our very own thoughts, yet with clarity & psychological accuracy we cannot match - Alain de Boton

When life appears to have been relatively stable for a while, we become less, rather than more, convinced that things will continue as they are - Marina Benjamin

The dentist extracts not the toothache but the tooth - Alfred North Whitehead

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things - Henri Poincaré

Definitions are like belts. The shorter they are, the more elastic they need to be - Stephen Toulmin

Government is but a link in the chain of social connection - Robert Montgomery Martin 1837

Successful scientific work is compatible with anything from Roman Catholicism, as in the case of Pasteur, to Sandemanism as in the case of Faraday - Joseph Needham

Detective novels are the balm of great minds - Winston Churchill



I am myself not convinced that the chasm which separates the historian from the geologist is any deeper or more unbridgeable than the chasm which separates the geologist from the physicist. But the way to mend the rift is not to teach elementary science to historians or elementary history to scientists. I have never heard of engineers being advised to attend elementary classes in botany - EH Carr

We must remember that only 100 generations have passed since the Roman Republic - MW Feldman & RC Lewontin

Can excessive reading actually enfeeble ones thinking apparatus? - Alfred North Whitehead


Previously in Favourite Quotations
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8