#curiosity
51 quotes
“On the Philosophical Problems in Quantizing Macroscopic Objects”
“Precise language is not the problem. Clear language is the problem.”
“New Textbooks for the”
“It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe , this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil”
“Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure”
“The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things. letter to Robert Bacher (6 April 1950), quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992) by James Gleick , p. 278”
“interview with Sylvan S. Schweber, 13 November 1984, published in QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga (1994) by Silvan S. Schweber, p. 436”
“I had too much stuff. My machines came from too far away. Reflecting on the failure of his presentation at the "Pocono Conference" of 30 March”
“Principles You can't say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction. note (c. 1948), quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992) by James Gleick , p. 5”
“We scientists are clever”
“truovasi di miglio i(n) miglio bone osteriee. ( Ancient Italian ) You can find good taverns from mile to mile.”
“At once two things came to mind: fear and desire: fear of the threatening dark cave, desire to see if there was anything miraculous within it.”
“Fa vini potenti e assai, … e ‘l vino vale el più uno soldo il boccale e la libbra della vitella un soldo e ‘l sale 10 dinari, e ‘l simile il burro, ed è la loro libbra 30 once, e l’ova un soldo la soldata. ( Modern Italian ) He makes powerful and very strong wines, … and the wine is worth more than a penny per jug and the pound of veal a penny and the salt 10 denarii, and so is the butter, and their pound is 30 ounces, and the eggs a penny.”
“It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite. Thoughts on Art and Life , by Leonardo da Vinci ,”
“As a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life well spent is long.”
“Thou, O God, sellest us all benefits, at the cost of our toil....”
“Look at the grace and sweetness of men and women in the street...”
“The painter strives and competes with nature...There is nothing in all nature without its reason. If you know the reason, you do not need the experience...”
“Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener. As quoted in The 48 Laws of Power (2000) by Robert Greene, p. 33”
“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect . A Treatise on Painting (1651); "The Paragone"; compiled by Francesco Melzi prior to 1542, first published as Trattato della pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne”
“Also partially quoted in Sir Sidney Lee (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography Vol.40”
“Biographia Britannica: Or the Lives of the Most Eminent Persons who Have Flourished in Great Britain from the Earliest Ages Down to the Present Times, Volume 5”
“The Theology of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica : A Preliminary Survey ,”
“1. Fidelity & Allegiance sworn to the King is only such a fidelity and obedience as is due to him by the law of the land; for were that faith and allegiance more than what the law requires, we would swear ourselves slaves , and the King absolute; whereas, by the law, we are free men, notwithstanding those Oaths. 2. When , therefore, the obligation by the law to fidelity and allegiance ceases, that by the Oath also ceases ... Letter to Dr. Covel Feb. 21, (1688”
“Bullialdus wrote that all force respecting the Sun as its center & depending on matter must be reciprocally in a duplicate ratio of the distance from the center. Letter to Edmund Halley (June 20, 1686) quoted in I. Bernard Cohen and George E. Smith , ed.s, The Cambridge Companion to Newton (2002) p. 204”
“I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676) [5 February 1676 ( O.S. )]”
“Paraphrases: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
“Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants.”
“This is a variation on a much older adage, which Roger Bacon attributed to Aristotle : Amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas . Bacon was perhaps paraphrasing a statement in the Nicomachean Ethics : Where both are friends, it is right to prefer truth.”
“These are notes in Latin that Newton wrote to himself that he titled: Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae [Certain Philosophical Questions]”
“On the Formation of Mould,”
“As I was led to keep in my study during many months worms in pots filled with earth, I became interested in them, and wished to learn how far they acted consciously, and how much mental power they displayed. Introduction, p. 2”
“de minimis non curat lex”
“de minimis lex non curat ,”
“(Detractors sometimes claim Darwin thought that the cell was an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm. Anyone reading the passage above will realize that Darwin thought no such thing.)”
“Aggregation of the Protoplasm within the Cells of the Tentacles”
“Concluding Remarks and Summary”
“(It is sometimes claimed that modern biologist are dogmatic "Darwinists" who uncritically accept all of Darwin's ideas. This is false: No one today accepts Darwin's hypothesis of gemmules and pangenesis .)”
“throw off minute granules or atoms, which circulate freely throughout the system, and when supplied with proper nutriment multiply by self”
“The Beagle staid at St. Helena five days, during which time I lived in the clouds in the centre of the Isd.”
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. The Demon-Haunted World (1995)”
“Books are the seeds of civilization. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“We are made of star stuff”
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love. Contact (1985), Ch. 1”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood were all made in the interiors of collapsing stars. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. Cosmos (1980), Ch. 1”
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known”
“All uncertainty is fruitful, so long as it is accompanied by the wish to understand.”