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Nature Quotes

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Nature Quotes

“A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.”

Nature Flower Careful Instance Observation Irony Superb Toads Pleasantries

Author:Honore de Balzac

“Certain issues in philosophy of science (having to do with observation and the definition of a theory's empirical import) had beenmisconstrued as issues in philosophy of logic and of language. With respect to modality, I hold the exact opposite: important philosophical problems concerning language have been misconstrued as relating to the content of science and the nature of the world. This is not at all new, but is the traditional nominalist line.”

World Important Philosophy Problem Science Language Nature Logic Philosophical Observation Philosophy Of Science

Author:Bas van Fraassen

“A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.”

Stuff Nature Hell Observation Vacuums

Author:Tennessee Williams

“The leading idea which is present in all our [geological] researches, and which accompanies every fresh observation, the sound of which to the ear of the student of Nature seems echoed from every part of her works, is-Time!-Time!-Time!”

Ideas Seems Science Sound Nature Students Hard Work Research Ears Observation Accompany

Author:George Julius Poulett Scrope

“Long before I ever saw the desert I was aware of the mystical overtones which the observation of nature made audible to me. But I have never been more frequently or more vividly aware of them than in connection with the desert phenomena.”

Long Made Science Nature Saws Mystery Connections Observation Desert Mystical

Book:The Voice of the Desert: A Naturalist's Interpretation

Source: The Voice of the Desert: A Naturalist's Interpretation

“Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”

Knows Men Facts Science Courses Can Do Nature Knowledge Observation Servant Interpreter

Book:Selected Philosophical Works

Source: Selected Philosophical Works

“The essential fact is that all the pictures which science now draws of nature, and which alone seem capable of according with observational facts, are mathematical pictures.”

Facts Seems Science Nature Natural Essentials Capable Draws Accounts Mathematics Observation Mathematical

Author:James Jeans

“The truth is, the Science of Nature has been already too long made only a work of the Brain and the Fancy: It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of Observations on material and obvious things.”

Should Long Has Beens Made Science Time Nature Brain Materials Return Truth Is Accounts Obvious Observation Fancy Obvious Things Soundness Plainness

Book:Extracts from Micrographia: Or, Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon

Source: Extracts from Micrographia: Or, Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon

“To consider the matter aright, reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them with particular qualities, according to their particular situations and relations. This instinct, 'tis true, arises from past observation and experience; but can anyone give the ultimate reason, why past experience and observation produces such an effect, any more than why nature alone should produce it?”

Source: A Treatise of Human Nature

“We receive experience from nature in a series of messages. From these messages we extract a content of information: that is, we decode the messages in some way. And from this code of information we then make a basic vocabulary of concepts and a basic grammar of laws, which jointly describe the inner organization that nature translates into the happenings and the appearances we meet.”

Way Law Science Nature Information Messages Happenings Concepts Experience Organization Series Appearance Observation Code Translate Vocabulary Grammar

Author:Jacob Bronowski

“What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal.”

Trying Mean Science Language Nature Natural Answers Asking Method Physics Experiments Observation Exposed Questioning Asking Questions

Author:Werner Heisenberg

“Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.”

Art Science Nature Born Art Is Observation Investigation Nature And Art

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“To the scientist, nature is always and merely a 'phenomenon,' not in the sense of being defective in reality, but in the sense of being a spectacle presented to his intelligent observation; whereas the events of history are never mere phenomena, never mere spectacles for contemplation, but things which the historian looks, not at, but through, to discern the thought within them.”

Looks Reality Science Nature Natural History Events Scientist Intelligent Mere Observation Contemplation Phenomenon Historian Defective Spectacles

Author:Robin G. Collingwood