33 Quotations Found

Luck is statistics taken personally.

Author: Penn Jillette | Subjects: Insight, Math & Science

Common sense works fine for the universe we’re used to, for time scales of decades, for a space between a tenth of a millimeter and a few thousand kilometers, and for speeds much less than the speed of light. Once we leave those domains of human experience, there’s no reason to expect the laws of nature to continue to obey our expectations, since our expectations … [ Read more ]

Author: Carl Sagan | Subjects: Concepts, Math & Science, Senses

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it … [ Read more ]

Author: Carl Sagan | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Math & Science, Personal Improvement, Thought | Inquiry

Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God.

Author: Maria Mitchell | Subjects: Environment | Sustainability, Math & Science, Religion

Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more “meaningful.”

Author: James D. Watson | Subjects: IT | Technology, Math & Science

Science is a magnificent human achievement. But it cannot tell us how to live, or what we should live for. The need for that kind of meaning is, for us humans, as deep and relentless as the need for food or water. It cannot be denied for long.

Author: Wilfred M. McClay | Subjects: Life & Society, Math & Science

I submit that the tension between science and faith should be resolved not in terms either of elimination or duality, but in terms of a synthesis.

Author: Teilhard de Chardin | Subjects: Math & Science, Religion

Where the world ceases to be the stage for personal hopes and desires, where we, as free beings, behold it in wonder, to question and to contemplate, there we enter the realm of art and of science. If we trace out what we behold and experience through the language of logic, we are doing science; if we show it in forms whose interrelationships are not … [ Read more ]

Author: Albert Einstein | Subjects: Art, Math & Science

Statistics are like expert witnesses – they will testify for either side.

Author: Murphy’s Law | Source: LaGuardia’s Law | Subject: Math & Science

Science is a discipline you practice with passion, and art is a passion you practice with discipline.

Author: Unknown | Subjects: Art, Math & Science

The being who possesses science puts limitless terror into the service of truth.

Author: Ernst Renan | Subjects: Math & Science, Perception | Observation, Philosophy

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The universe is much bigger than our prophets said—grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and … [ Read more ]

Author: Carl Sagan | Subjects: Math & Science, Religion

Theoretical scientists, inching away from the safe and known, skirting the point of no return, confront nature with a free invention of the intellect. They strip the discovery down and wire it into place in the form of mathematical models or other abstractions that define the perceived relation exactly. The now-naked idea is scrutinized with as much coldness and outward lack of pity as the … [ Read more ]

Author: Edward O. Wilson | Subjects: Discoveries, Math & Science