As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs.
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.
The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers.
All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'
No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power.
A University of Chicago professor said the greatest day in the world was when a water puppy crawled out on land and decided to stay. The water puppy, he said, went on to become a man. If he proves that, I am willing to give up Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year's Day, and to celebrate Water Puppy Day.
People like to imagine that because all our mechanical equipment moves so much faster, that we are thinking faster, too.