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Knowledge Quotes

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Knowledge Quotes

“If our country's choice is to be a Great Power, Russia will be the great power not because of the nuclear potential, not because of faith in God or president, or western investments but thanks to the labor of the nation, faith in Knowledge and Science and thanks to the maintenance and development of scientific potential and education.”

IfsGodScienceNationsPresidentEducationKnowledgeDevelopmentLaborAccountsInvestmentWesternNuclearRussiaThanksFaith In GodMaintenanceGreat Power
Author:Zhores Alferov
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“For this knowledge of right living, we have sought a new name... . As theology is the science of religious life, and biology the science of [physical] life ... so let Oekology be henceforth the science of [our] normal lives ... the worthiest of all the applied sciences which teaches the principles on which to found... healthy... and happy life.”

ScienceFoundNamesReligiousPrinciplesKnowledgeTeachHealthyNormalTheologyBiologyHappy LifeNormal LifeReligious LifeHealthy And HappyApplied Science
Author:Ellen Swallow Richards
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“Scientific practice is above all a story-telling practice. ... Biology is inherently historical, and its form of discourse is inherently narrative. ... Biology as a way of knowing the world is kin to Romantic literature, with its discourse about organic form and function. Biology is the fiction appropriate to objects called organisms; biology fashions the facts "discovered" about organic beings.”

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Author:Donna J. Haraway
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“During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical. The question now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed phenomena in those consequences which can be shown necessarily to follow from it, if it be true”

IfsHas BeensMadeTwoLastsScienceHalfKnowledgeCenturyPureConsequenceBasesMathematicsBeing TrueObservationMathematicalHypothesisAccord
Book:A Budget of Paradoxes Reprinted, with the Author's Additions, from the Athenaeum Augustus De Morgan
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“For the little that one has reflected on the origin of our knowledge, it is easy to perceive that we can acquire it only by means of comparison. That which is absolutely incomparable is wholly incomprehensible. God is the only example that we could give here. He cannot be comprehended, because he cannot be compared. But all which is susceptible of comparison, everything that we can perceive by different aspects, all that we can consider relatively, can always be judged according to our knowledge.”

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Author:Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
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“Geological facts being of an historical nature, all attempts to deduce a complete knowledge of them merely from their still, subsisting consequences, to the exclusion of unexceptionable testimony, must be deemed as absurd as that of deducing the history of ancient Rome solely from the medals or other monuments of antiquity it still exhibits, or the scattered ruins of its empire, to the exclusion of a Livy, a Sallust, or a Tacitus.”

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Book:Geological essays
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“Nothing is known in our profession by guess; and I do not believe, that from the first dawn of medical science to the present moment, a single correct idea has ever emanated from conjecture: it is right therefore, that those who are studying their profession should be aware that there is no short road to knowledge; and that observation on the diseased living, examination of the dead, and experiments upon living animals, are the only sources of true knowledge; and that inductions from these are the sole bases of legitimate theory.”

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Author:Astley Cooper
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“Our model of Nature should not be like a building-a handsome structure for the populace to admire, until in the course of time some one takes away a corner stone and the edifice comes toppling down. It should be like an engine with movable parts. We need not fix the position of any one lever; that is to be adjusted from time to time as the latest observations indicate. The aim of the theorist is to know the train of wheels which the lever sets in motion-that binding of the parts which is the soul of the engine.”

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Author:Arthur Eddington
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“Our knowledge of stars and interstellar matter must be based primarily on the electromagnetic radiation which reaches us. Nature has thoughtfully provided us with a universe in which radiant energy of almost all wave lengths travels in straight lines over enormous distances with usually rather negligible absorption.”

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Author:Lyman Spitzer
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“The field of scientific abstraction encompasses independent kingdoms of ideas and of experiments and within these, rulers whose fame outlasts the centuries. But they are not the only kings in science. He also is a king who guides the spirit of his contemporaries by knowledge and creative work, by teaching and research in the field of applied science, and who conquers for science provinces which have only been raided by craftsmen.”

IdeasScienceSpiritKnowledgeCreativityCreativeTeachingCenturyFieldsKingsFameResearchIndependentGuidesExperimentsKingdomsConquerRulersAbstractionProvincesCreative WorkCraftsmanApplied Science
Author:Fritz Haber
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“Engineering is not merely knowing and being knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis; engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organizing forces of technological change ... Engineers operate at the interface between science and society.”

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Author:Gordon S. Brown
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“What has been done is little-scarcely a beginning; yet it is much in comparison with the total blank of a century past. And our knowledge will, we are easily persuaded, appear in turn the merest ignorance to those who come after us. Yet it is not to be despised, since by it we reach up groping to touch the hem of the garment of the Most High.”

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Author:Agnes Mary Clerke
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“Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.”

ShowsScienceCertainDifferencesSimpleKnowledgeDoubtAirMovementIgnorancePlantAstronomyIgnorantRelativeProbabilityMoleculesOrbitTrajectoryRegularityCometsVapour
Book:Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator
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“[At high school in Cape Town] my interests outside my academic work were debating, tennis, and to a lesser extent, acting. I became intensely interested in astronomy and devoured the popular works of astronomers such as Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans, from which I learnt that a knowledge of mathematics and physics was essential to the pursuit of astronomy. This increased my fondness for those subjects.”

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Author:Allan McLeod Cormack
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“The mechanist is intimately convinced that a precise knowledge of the chemical constitution, structure, and properties of the various organelles of a cell will solve biological problems. This will come in a few centuries. For the time being, the biologist has to face such concepts as orienting forces or morphogenetic fields. Owing to the scarcity of chemical data and to the complexity of life, and despite the progresses of biochemistry, the biologist is still threatened with vertigo.”

KnowsStillsProblemFacesScienceForceKnowledgeProgressCenturyFieldsConceptsConstitutionStructurePropertyVariousSolveConvincedDespiteCellsDataComplexityChemicalsThreatenedPreciseScarcityOwingBiologistBiochemistryVertigo
Author:Andre Michel Lwoff
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“I am sorry that the distinguished leader of the Republican Party in the House states that he is not versed in botany and publicly admits that he does not know anything of these terms or what it is all about; but, Mr. Chairman, it is indeed a sad day for the people of this country when we must close the doors of the laboratories doing research work for the people of the United States.”

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Author:Fiorello H. La Guardia
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“We find that one of the most rewarding features of being scientists these days ... is the common bond which the search for truth provides to scholars of many tongues and many heritages. In the long run, that spirit will inevitably have a constructive effect on the benefits which man can derive from knowledge of himself and his environment.”

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Author:Stanford Moore
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“If the God of revelation is most appropriately worshipped in the temple of religion, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge.”

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Author:David Brewster
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“Geology holds the keys of one of the kingdoms of nature; and it cannot be said that a science which extends our Knowledge, and by consequence our Power, over a third part of nature, holds a low place among intellectual employments.”

SaidScienceKnowledgeKeysIntellectualLowsConsequenceThirdsKingdomsEmploymentGeology
Book:Vindiciæ Geologicæ: The Connexion of Geology with Religion, Explained in an Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before University of Oxford, May 15, 1819, on the Endowment of Readership in Geology
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“A scientist strives to understand the work of Nature. But with our insufficient talents as scientists, we do not hit upon the truth all at once. We must content ourselves with tracking it down, enveloped in considerable darkness, which leads us to make new mistakes and errors. By diligent examination, we may at length little by little peel off the thickest layers, but we seldom get the core quite free, so that finally we have to be satisfied with a little incomplete knowledge.”

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Author:Torbern Bergman
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“And this is the ultimate lesson that our knowledge of the mode of transmission of typhus has taught us: Man carries on his skin a parasite, the louse. Civilization rids him of it. Should man regress, should he allow himself to resemble a primitive beast, the louse begins to multiply again and treats man as he deserves, as a brute beast. This conclusion would have endeared itself to the warm heart of Alfred Nobel. My contribution to it makes me feel less unworthy of the honour which you have conferred upon me in his name.”

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Author:Charles Nicolle
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“As was the case for Nobel's own invention of dynamite, the uses that are made of increased knowledge can serve both beneficial and potentially harmful ends. Increased knowledge clearly implies increased responsibility. We reject the notion advocated in some quarters that man should stop eating from the tree of knowledge, as if that were humanly possible.”

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Author:Nicolaas Bloembergen
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“Either one or the other [analysis or synthesis] may be direct or indirect. The direct procedure is when the point of departure is known-direct synthesis in the elements of geometry. By combining at random simple truths with each other, more complicated ones are deduced from them. This is the method of discovery, the special method of inventions, contrary to popular opinion.”

MayScienceSimpleKnownOpinionKnowledgeSpecialElementsDiscoveryDirectMethodComplicatedContraryInventionAnalysisProceduresGeometryDepartureCombiningIndirectSynthesisSimple TruthsPopular Opinion
Author:Andre-Marie Ampere
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“Equations seem like treasures, spotted in the rough by some discerning individual, plucked and examined, placed in the grand storehouse of knowledge, passed on from generation to generation. This is so convenient a way to present scientific discovery, and so useful for textbooks, that it can be called the treasure-hunt picture of knowledge.”

WaySeemsScienceIndividualKnowledgeGenerationsDiscoveryTreasureRoughEquationsHuntsConvenientTextbooksDiscerningScientific DiscoveryTreasure Hunt
Book:The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg
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“Frequently, I have been asked if an experiment I have planned is pure or applied science; to me it is more important to know if the experiment will yield new and probably enduring knowledge about nature. If it is likely to yield such knowledge, it is, in my opinion, good fundamental research; and this is more important than whether the motivation is purely aesthetic satisfaction on the part of the experimenter on the one hand or the improvement of the stability of a high-power transistor on the other.”

IfsKnowsHas BeensImportantHandsScienceMotivationOpinionKnowledgePureResearchImportanceFundamentalsEndureSatisfactionImprovementExperimentsYieldStabilityAestheticGood FunApplied ScienceTransistors
Author:William Shockley
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“If physicists could not quote in the text, they would not feel that much was lost with respect to advancement of knowledge of the natural world. If historians could not quote, they would deem it a disastrous impediment to the communication of knowledge about the past. A luxury for physicists, quotation is a necessity for historians, indispensable to historiography.”

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Author:J. H. Hexter
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“If the question were, "What ought to be the next objective in science?" my answer would be the teaching of science to the young, so that when the whole population grew up there would be a far more general background of common sense, based on a knowledge of the real meaning of the scientific method of discovering truth.”

IfsRealWholeWould BeYoungScienceNextAnswersCommonKnowledgeTeachingGrewOughtGrew UpAccountsMethodPopulationBackgroundsObjectivesCommon SenseDiscoveringScientific Method
Author:Elihu Thomson
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“If we would serve science, we must extend her limits, not only as far as our own knowledge is concerned, but in the estimation of others.”

IfsKnowsScienceKnowledgeLimitsConcernedAccountsEstimation
Book:Cellular Pathology as based upon physiological and pathological histology. Twenty lectures delivered in ... 1858. Translated from the second edition of the original by F. Chance. With notes and numerous emendations principally from MS. notes of the author, and illustrated by ... engravings on wood.
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“In order to survive, an animal must be born into a favoring or at least tolerant environment. Similarly, in order to achieve preservation and recognition, a specimen of fossil man must be discovered in intelligence, attested by scientific knowledge, and interpreted by evolutionary experience. These rigorous prerequisites have undoubtedly caused many still-births in human palaeontology and are partly responsible for the high infant mortality of discoveries of geologically ancient man.”

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Author:Earnest Hooton
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“In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws - that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.”

KnowsMindMeanStatesFactsLawScienceUniverseSpeakGivenCausesKnowledgeStudyUnderstoodConnectionsRelationAbsolutesNotionFinalsObservationVainExplanationReasoningDestinationEstablishmentSuccessionResemblance
Author:Auguste Comte
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