Progress In Science Quotes:

Progress in science depends on new techniques, new discoveries and new ideas, probably in that order.

- Sydney Brenner

topic: Discovery, Order, Ideas, Progress In Science

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Real, Creativity, Imagination, Innovative Leadership, Power Of Imagination

Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.

- Albert Einstein

source: Letter to Heinrich Zangger (1917), as quoted in "Albert Einstein: A Biography" by Albrecht Fölsing, (p. 399), 1997.

topic: Love, Life, Motivational, Modern Physics, Science And Technology

Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous than the successes ; yet they are usually left unchronicled.

- William Ramsay

source: William Ramsay (1909). “Essays Biographical and Chemical”

topic: Progress, Trials, Made, Progress In Science

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Inspirational, Positive, Leadership, Incomplete Knowledge, Fine Arts

Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory.

- Richard P. Feynman

topic: Science, Progress, Theory, Progress In Science

Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.

- Madame de Stael

topic: Men, Progress, Moral, Progress In Science, Scientific Progress

All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Ambition, Men, Progress, Social Progress, Man And Superman

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

- Isaac Asimov

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Motivational, Proclamation, Inspirational Science

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

source: Man and Superman "Maxims for Revolutionists" (1903) See Hawthorne 18

topic: Life, Motivational, Change, Social Progress, Man And Superman

Progress in science is often built on wrong theories that are later corrected. It is better to be wrong than to be vague.

- Freeman Dyson

source: "The Scientist As Rebel". Book by Freeman Dyson, 2006.

topic: Progress, Theory, Built, Progress In Science, Vague

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

- Frank Zappa

topic: Positive, Inspiring, Autism, Adhd, Steady Progress

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Mean, Technology, Progress, Technological Advancement, Old Technology

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

- Carl Sagan

topic: Change, Humility, Learning, Information Science, Good Science

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness.

- Charles Darwin

source: Descent of Man Ch. 21, Appleton, New York (1871)

topic: Falseness, Progress In Science

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Love, Science, Math, Modern Science, Science Research

If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives.

- Richard P. Feynman

topic: Science, Opportunity, Progress, Progress In Science, Unsure

The scientist is a practical man and his are practical (i.e., practically attainable) aims. He does not seek the ultimate but the proximate. He does not speak of the last analysis but rather of the next approximation. His are not those beautiful structures so delicately designed that a single flaw may cause the collapse of the whole. The scientist builds slowly and with a gross but solid kind of masonry. If dissatisfied with any of his work, even if it be near the very foundations, he can replace that part without damage to the remainder.

- Gilbert N. Lewis

topic: Beautiful, Science, Men, Masonry, Approximation

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things... It doesn't frighten me.

- Richard P. Feynman

topic: Ignorance, Knowing, Doubt, Progress In Science, Unsure

Reduction is at the heart of progress in science.

- Jon Elster

source: Jon Elster (1989). “Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences”, p.74, Cambridge University Press

topic: Heart, Progress, Reduction, Progress In Science

Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old.

- Vladimir Lenin

source: Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin, V. I. Lenin (1927). “Collected works of V. I. Lenin”

topic: Views, Progress, Sides, Progress In Science

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

- Baruch Spinoza

topic: Art, Freedom, Philosophical, Liberal Arts, Progress In Science

The pretention that some of us are better than others, I don't think is a very good thing. And who is contributing what to our progress in science is not so obvious and many who don't get that Nobel Prize are better than people than some of us that do get the Nobel Prize. ... I think we should not be interested in prizes, we should be interested in learning about nature.

- Jack Steinberger

source: Interview with Adam Smith, www.nobelprize.org. July 2008.

topic: Thinking, People, Progress, Contributing, Progress In Science

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.

- Francis Bacon

topic: Philosophy, Men, Progress, Progress In Science