Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski Quotes

Mathematician

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenScienceAscentArtHumansScientistMadeMindUnderstandingWorld

Famous Jacob Bronowski Quotes

“The creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change and on himself as an instrument for change. Otherwise, what are you creating for? If the world is perfectly all right the way it is, you have no place in it. The creative personality thinks of the world as a canvas for change and of himself as a divine agent of change.”

ChangeImaginationCreationChange Agents
Book:The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination
Create image

“Russell is reputed at a dinner party once to have said, ‘Oh, it is useless talking about inconsistent things, from an inconsistent proposition you can prove anything you like.’ Well, it is very easy to show this by mathematical means. But, as usual, Russell was much cleverer than this. Somebody at the dinner table said, 'Oh, come on!’ He said, 'Well, name an inconsistent proposition,’ and the man said, 'Well, what shall we say, 2 = 1.’ 'All right,’ said Russell, 'what do you want me to prove?’ The man said, 'I want you to prove that you’re the pope.’ 'Why,’ said Russell, 'the pope and I are two, but two equals one, therefore the pope and I are one.”

PhilosophyLogicMathBertrand RussellJacob BronowskiLogical Inconsistency
Book:The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination
Create image

“The poem or the discovery exists in two moments of vision: the moment of appreciation as much as that of creation; for the appreciator must see the movement, wake to the echo which was started in the creation of the work. In the moment of appreciation we live again the moment when the creator saw and held the hidden likeness. When a simile takes us aback and persuades us together, when we find a juxtaposition in a picture both odd and intriguing, when a theory is at once fresh and convincing, we do not merely nod over someone else's work. We re-enact the creative act, and we ourselves make the discovery again... ...Reality is not an exhibit for man's inspection, labeled: "Do not touch." There are no appearances to be photographed, no experiences to be copied, in which we do not take part. We re-make nature by the act of discovery, in the poem or in the theorem. And the great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself re-creates them. They are the marks of unity in variety; and in the instant when the mind seizes this for itself, in art or in science, the heart misses a beat.”

ReadingUnderstandingCreativityCommunicationDiscoverySharing
Author:Jacob Bronowski
Create image

“Todas as modalidades de amostragem fornecem apenas uma informação provável a respeito da população da qual se extraiu a amostra. Ao provar uma teoria científica pela experimentação, procuramos informar-nos sobre um conjunto de ocorrências naturais, por meio de uma amostra, convencendo-nos de que o universo considerado se conforma com as configurações geradas pelo modelo que adotamos, em toda a sua extensão. Muitas asneiras têm sido ditas a respeito da probabilidade na ciência pelos que não compreendem esta concepção. Há filósofos que falam em “teorias prováveis”, e outros chegam a falar como se os fatos pudessem ser prováveis. Os fatos existem ou não”

EpistemologiaMetodologia Científica
Book:A Sense of the Future: Essays in Natural Philosophy
Create image

“The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations - more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.”

ArtTwoScienceArtistBornCreationDiscoveryAspectOriginalsWorks Of ArtExplorationExplosionsFuseOriginal ThoughtOriginal Art
Author:Jacob Bronowski
Create image

“Da Vinci was as great a mechanic and inventor as were Newton and his friends. Yet a glance at his notebooks shows us that what fascinated him about nature was its variety, its infinite adaptability, the fitness and the individuality of all its parts. By contrast what made astronomy a pleasure to Newton was its unity, its singleness, its model of a nature in which the diversified parts were mere disguises for the same blank atoms.”

MadeShowsScienceNatureNaturalPleasureModelsInfiniteUnityMereIndividualityAstronomyVarietyAtomsFascinatedContrastBlankDisguiseGlancesMechanicInventorNotebookNewtonAdaptabilitySingleness
Book:The Common Sense of Science
Create image

“We re-make nature by the act of discovery, in the poem or in the theorem. And the great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself re-creates them. They are the marks of unity in variety; and in the instant when the mind seizes this for itself, in art or in science, the heart misses a beat.”

MindHeartArtMissingReaderBeatsDiscoveryMarkUnityVarietyInstantTheorems
Book:Science and Human Values
Create image

“It is often said that the progression from simple to complex runs counter to the normal statistics of chance that are formalized in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Strictly speaking, we could avoid this criticism simply by insisting that the Second Law does not apply to living systems in the environment in which we find them. For the Second Law applies only when there is no overall flow of energy into or out of a system, whereas all living systems are sustained by a net inflow of energy.”

DoeSaidRunningLawEnergyChanceSimpleEnvironmentAtheismNormalFlowCriticismComplexesPositive AtheismStatisticsProgressionInsistingThermodynamics
Author:Jacob Bronowski
Create image

“The private motives of scientists are not the trend of science. The trend of science is made by the needs of society: navigation before the eighteenth century, manufacture thereafter; and in our age I believe the liberation of personality. Whatever the part which scientists like to act, or for that matter which painters like to dress, science shares the aims of our society just as art does.”

NeedsBelieveDoeArtMadeMatterAgeI BelieveSocietyShareCenturyPersonalityScientistAimDressesPainterLiberationMotiveOur SocietyTrendsNavigation
Book:The Common Sense of Science
Create image

“The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better. You see it in his science. You see it in the magnificence with which he carves and builds, the loving care, the gaiety, the effrontery. The monuments are supposed to commemorate kings and religions, heroes, dogmas, but in the end the man they commemorate is the builder.”

MenWellsDoeEndsDoneCarePleasurePowerfulHe ManKingsHeroSkillsMost PowerfulDogmaMonumentBuilderAscentMagnificenceGaiety
Book:The Ascent of Man
Create image

“There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts.”

MindHumansMeanTwoWarEndsPhilosophySpiritSufferingTurnsBeliefNationsCivilizationMachinesBetrayalMonstersGhostJustifyDogmaButtonsHuman SpiritDeliberateDilemmaAssertionObedientDeafnessEnds Justify The Means
Book:The Ascent of Man
Create image

“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.”

InspirationalImportantCertainEducationKnownKnowledgeLearningStudyTeacherTeachingStudentsWorshipEducationalQuestioningGreat TeacherProgramming LanguagesGood TeacherComputer LanguageTeaching ChildrenGreat EducationTeaching And LearningEducation And TeachersSchool TeachersBarefootSchools And EducationSchool EducationGreat EducationalImportant QuestionsTeaching And EducationTeachers And TeachingTeaching EducationTeacher StudentInspirational TeacherTeacher And StudentInspirational EducationGreat TeachingKnowledge EducationBeing A TeacherEducation And KnowledgeGood TeachingStudents And EducationGood StudentsStudent LearningParents And TeachersKnowledge LearningInspiring EducationTeaching StudentsTraining And EducationIrreverenceWhat Is EducationSchools And TeachersEducation TodayAcademic LifeEducation Is ImportantImportance Of ScienceStudents Today
Author:Jacob Bronowski
Create image