Phrases

1. The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly.

2. Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.

3. Work. Finish. Publish.

4. The beauty of electricity or of any other force is no less wonderful than its utility.

5. There’s nothing quite as frightening as someone who knows they are right.

6. It is right it should be so; man was made for joy and woe; and when this we rightly know, safely through the world we go.

7. But still try, for who knows what is possible?

8. Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties.

9. I am no poet but if you think for yourselves as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

10. Lectures which really teach will never be popular; lectures which are popular will never really teach.

11. The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.

12. Mental education is not the acquisition of particular knowledge but the strengthening of mental powers.

13. Observation is the source of all true science.

14. A man who is certain he is right is almost sure to be wrong.

15. Chemical manipulations are not the business of a chemical professor.

16. The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation, and communication.

17. I am busy just now again on electro-magnetism, and think I have got hold of a good thing, but can’t say; it may be a weed instead of a fish that, after all my labor, I may at last pull up.

18. The secret of all those who make discoveries is that they regard nothing as impossible.

19. The power to question is the basis of all human progress.

20. I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly, and with a certainty of success.

21. A day will dawn when the conception of electricity will be so clear in the minds of men that they will be able to grasp its effects at any point of the universe.

22. Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it.

23. Among those points of self-education which take up the form of curiosity, the understanding of one’s self is, I have been convinced, the foremost.

24. The lecturer should impress the audience not himself.

25. The education of the mind is incomplete without the practice of the moral feelings.

26. My worldly faculties are slipping away day by day. Happy it is for all of us that the true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as little children, trusting in the Father of Mercies and accepting His unspeakable gift. I bow before Him.

27. I have far more confidence in the one man who works mentally and bodily at a matter than in the six who merely talk about it.

28. The powers of nature are never in repose; her work never stands still.

29. Whenever a man dedicates himself to the pursuit of science, he must consider himself as having no personal views.

30. In the very nature of things, anything that is true is so by virtue of its being able to stand the test of universal experience.

31. Read. Experiment. Teach. Formulate.

32. It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

33. I am eager to learn, therefore I listen.

34. To be a good experimenter, one must be prepared to fail.

35. The great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, and to furnish a refined pleasure.

36. Time is all I require. Perseverance and patience are the crowning qualities of self-sufficiency.

37. The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.

38. Do not imagine that chemistry is a dry science. Chemistry is the science of change. It deals with the constantly changing matter which makes up the world.

39. The study of science teaches young men to think, while study in theoretical subjects like metaphysics or theology teaches them to reason.

40. The loss of life will be irreplaceable; whereas the loss of time is merely a loss of a thing.

41. I have tried, and I cannot find, either in scripture or in science, a prohibition against laughing.

42. The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.

43. The world little knows how many of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his own severe criticism and adverse examination.

44. The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion but determined to judge for himself.

45. He who is ignorant of the science of numbers is missing out on something very wonderful. For he is neglecting the science which affects him most.

46. We are too apt to treat of history as of a record of the past. But history is the essence of innumerable biographies.

47. The most important discovery of my life—regardless of its outcome—is the discovery of the spirit of adventure in the pursuit of knowledge.

48. The question should not be, what the man has accomplished, but what man has felt compelled to do.

49. All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections.

50. As an investigator, I have always felt that it was my duty to doubt the correctness of my experiments and the conclusions which they appeared to manifest.

51. I am here to speak about facts, to deal with things as they are, to investigate and to teach, not to persuade.

52. The sciences are of a sociable nature, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other.

53. In science, there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.

54. The chemist who can extract from his heart’s elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.

55. Knowledge is not necessarily wisdom.

56. The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.

57. Every discovery in science is a tacit criticism of older views.

58. We ought not to consider the uses of things but rather their causes and their existence.

59. The true measure of science is not its utility but its advancement of knowledge.

60. Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.

61. A good experimenter is he who can observe.

62. The beauty of science greatly depends on the fact that no theory is sacred.

63. Science, in its very nature, is predictive.

64. The strength and weakness of physicists is that we believe in what we can measure. And yet, measurement can mislead.

65. Patience is the companion of wisdom.

66. To discover the cause of things is the fundamental goal of all experiments.

67. The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel.

68. An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer.

69. It is impossible to divorce science from ethics.

70. Education is not so much about teaching people what to think, as about teaching them how to think.

71. Understanding the laws of nature does not mean that we are immune to their operations.

72. One step at a time is all it takes to get you there.

73. The art of science is a wonderful art, but it is sadly abused by some who are ignorantly attempting to prove from it the nonexistence of the spiritual.

74. I shall never be satisfied until I have made these discoveries which will bring more good to humanity.

75. It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

76. The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

77. In order to succeed in science, you must have the faith to believe in possibilities.

78. There is no philosophy in my religion. I am of a very small and despised sect of Christians, known, if known at all, as Sandemanians, and our hope is founded on the faith that is in Christ.

79. The art of seeing has to be learned.

80. It is the great beauty of our science that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subject of investigation, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility.

81. The natural philosopher of to-day may not be able to present as many facts as the metaphysician, but, in those which he does present, we have the satisfaction of knowing that they lead us somewhere.

82. The study of science makes a man think.

83. Always question; always wonder.

84. The mind which has been trained to a habit of fixed attention and concentration is the very best possession.

85. Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its own immediate boundaries.

86. There is nothing in science which teaches the origin of anything at all.

87. The joy that a discovery brings is not the discovery itself, but the knowledge that it can bring light to others.

88. A thorough conviction of the importance of mutual love and goodwill amongst men to their well-being, requires only a simple and truthful judgment.

89. I must work, I must achieve something in science for the benefit of mankind.

90. The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.

91. Research in the various branches of knowledge, always discovering something new, is one of the conditions of man’s existence.

92. Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things.

93. The great laboratory of the world is open to us, and nature is ready to yield her secrets to the mind that is prepared to understand her.

94. The result of mathematical investigation is to establish the rule of law in the midst of chaos; to show that what seemed to be chaos is but a part, or consequence, of some great order.

95. Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.

96. I am inclined to believe that the development of science depends more on the character and direction of the education which men receive than upon any other cause.

97. The object of chemical research is to promote the well-being of man by aiding his physical and moral emancipation.

98. It is said that science purifies the soul.

99. In nature nothing is superfluous.

100. The most beautiful and profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science.