Robert Burns Woodward quotes

“I love crystals, the beauty of their forms and formation; liquids, dormant, distilling, sloshing! The fumes, the odors good or bad, the rainbow of colors; the gleaming vessels of every size, shape and purpose.”
-- Robert Burns Woodward

#Science Quotes #Color Quotes #Rainbow Quotes

“Synthesis..., perhaps in greater measure than activities in any other area of organic chemistry, provides a measure of the condition and power of science. For synthetic undertakings are seldom if ever undertaken by chance, nor will the most painstaking, or inspired, purely observational activities suffice. Synthesis must always be carried out by plan.”
-- Robert Burns Woodward

#Synthesis Quotes #Chance Quotes #Chemistry Quotes

“If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us.”

Source : A.A. Gill (2008). “Previous Convictions: Assignments from Here and There”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”

“Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends.”

Source : "This much I know". Interview with Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2009.

“I value science--none can prize it more, It gives ten thousand motives to adore: Be it religious, as it ought to be, The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee.”

Source : Abraham Coles (1866). “The Microcosm: A Poem, Read Before the Medical Society of New Jersey at Its Centenary Anniversary: with the Address Delivered as President, Jan. 24, 1866”, p.22

“We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound, the spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.”

“But it would be absolutely mistaken to regard a wealth of theoretical knowledge as characteristic proof for the qualities and abilities of a leader.”

“There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts.”

“I want to express the utmost intensity of the color, bring out the quality, make it expressive.”

Source : Adolph Gottlieb, Robert M. Doty, Diane Waldman (1968). “Adolph Gottlieb”

“I use color in terms of emotional quality, as a vehicle for feeling... feeling is everything I have experienced or thought.”

“I'd rather see the world as a rainbow than endless shade of gray.”