Quotes by Scientists - Page 9

I remember the stink of corruption. It had a kind of sweetness to it, a sweetness that'd make you want to hurl.
Mark Lawrence
The language of mathematics differs from that of everyday life, because it is essentially a rationally planned language. The languages of size have no place for private sentiment, either of the individual or of the nation. They are international languages like the binomial nomenclature of natural history. In dealing with the immense complexity of his social life man has not yet begun to apply inventiveness to the rational planning of ordinary language when describing different kinds of institutions and human behavior. The language of everyday life is clogged with sentiment, and the science of human nature has not advanced so far that we can describe individual sentiment in a clear way. So constructive thought about human society is hampered by the same conservatism as embarrassed the earlier naturalists. Nowadays people do not differ about what sort of animal is meant by Cimex or Pediculus, because these words are used only by people who use them in one way. They still can and often do mean a lot of different things when they say that a mattress is infested with bugs or lice. The study of a man's social life has not yet brought forth a Linnaeus. So an argument about the 'withering away of the State' may disclose a difference about the use of the dictionary when no real difference about the use of the policeman is involved. Curiously enough, people who are most sensible about the need for planning other social amenities in a reasonable way are often slow to see the need for creating a rational and international language.
Lancelot Hogben
Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
From time immemorial, some men supposed to deal in one-valued 'eternal verities'. We called such men 'philosophers' or 'meta-physicians'. But they seldom realized that all their 'eternal verities' consisted only of words, and words which, for the most part, belonged to a primitive language, refleting in its structure the assumed structure of the world of remote antiquity. Besides, they did not realize that these 'eternal verities' last only so long as the human nervous system is not altered. Under the influence of these 'philosophers', two-valued 'logic', and the confusion of orders of abstractions, nearly all of us contracted a firmly rooted predilection for 'general' statements - 'universals', as they were called - which in most cases inherently involved the semantic one-valued conviction of validity for all 'time' to come.
Alfred Korzybski
There are several important remarks which can be made about this 'absolute emptiness' and 'absolute nothingness'. First of all, we now know, theoretically and empirically, that such a thing does not exist. There may be more or less of something, but never an unlimited 'perfect vacuum'. In the second place, our nervous make-up, being in accord with experience, is such that 'absolute emptiness' requires 'outside walls'. The question at once arises, is the world 'finite' or 'infinite'? If we say 'finite', it has to have outside walls, and then the question arises: What is 'behind the walls'? If we say it is 'infinite', the problem of the psychological 'walls' is not eliminated. and we still have the semantic need for walls, and then ask what is beyond the walls. So we see the such a world suspended in some sort of an 'absolute void' represents a nature against human nature, and so we had to invent something supernatural to account for such assumed nature against human nature. In the third place, and this remark is the most fundamental of all, because a symbol must stand for something to be a symbol at all, 'absolute nothingness' cannot be objective and cannot be symbolized at all. This ends the argument, as all we may say about it is neither true nor false, but non-sense. We can make noises, but say nothing about the external world. It is easy to see that 'absolute nothingness' is a label for a semantic disturbance, for verbal objectification, for a pathological state inside our skin, for a fancy, but not a symbol, for a something which has objective existence outside our skin.
Alfred Korzybski
If language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten.
Temple Grandin
Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
Francis Bacon
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Our audacity must be rooted in our humility.
Pushkar Ganesh Vaidya
Moreover I hate everything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my activity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
hand. I was charged with organizing the messages: descriptions of the creatures, descriptions of their space vessels, descriptions of their conveyances, of their weapons, of their movements. Positions of our soldiers, of our allies’ soldiers. Troop movements. New arrivals of space vessels. Reports of casualties. Dear God, the casualties. And their descriptions. Charred piles of ash; bloodless carcases; crumpled, broken bodies; crushed jelly; roasted, dead meat. All…in these hands.
Stephanie Osborn
Wait awhile, and everything will change."~'Griblich
Stephanie Osborn
The health of an enlightened and progressive society is measured by how vibrant is its science fiction, since that is where true self-critique and appraisal and hope lie.
David Brin
As sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. But science fiction has not been forgiven for its crap. The reason is that science fiction inherently distrusts the 'eternal verities' on which literature graduates base their doctoral dissertations. Literature departments were uncomfortable with that. But things change.
David Brin
Nature is never so admired as when she is understood.
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is much wider in its range and compass than the understanding, I do not restrain it within the same bounds, but extend it also to things which I do not understand: and as the will is of itself indifferent to these, it easily falls into error and sin, and chooses the evil for the good, or the false for the true.
René Descartes
Force is incomplete and therefore has to be fed energy constantly. Power is total and complete in itself and requires nothing from outside.
David Hawkins
After all, it isn't the facts of one's environment, but one's attitude toward them, that determines whether one will be defeated or victorious.
David Hawkins
Perceptual fields are limited by the attractor patterns that they're associated with. This means that the capacity to recognize significant factors in a given situation is limited by the context that arises from the level of consciousness of the observer. The motive of the viewer automatically determines what is seen; causality is, therefore, ascribed to factors that are, in fact, a function of the biases of the observer and aren't at all instrumental in the situation itself.
David Hawkins
The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure, it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.
Francis Bacon
Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true—in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals.
David Brin
I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I’ve ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that’s genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That’s how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It’s cartoon crap.
David Brin
I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;'Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When a course of action is forced upon you it’s best to accept it with grace and milk it for whatever you can get, right up to the moment the first opportunity to weasel out of the deal presents itself.
Mark Lawrence
Adventures are to the adventurous. They abound on every side; but only the chosen few have the courage to embrace them. And they will not come to you; you must go out to seek them. Then they meet you half-way, and rush into your arms, for they know their true lovers.
Allen Grant
If I wasn't a devil myself I'd give Me up to the Devil this very minute.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
John Lyman
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You have my advice. Carry it with you. It won't slow you down.
Mark Lawrence
...we ought not meanwhile to make use of doubt in the conduct of life.
René Descartes
All force strives forward to work far and wideTo live and grow and ever to expand;Yet we are checked and thwarted on each sideBy the world's flux and swept along like sand:In this internal storm and outward tideWe hear a promise, hard to understand:From the compulsion that all creatures binds,Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Lies can be expensive to maintain, Alexa. And I’m sure we haven’t seen one percent of the price that the lies in this case ultimately will exact.
Theodore Jerome Cohen
So, what are you going to do about it?”"Watch this!""Oh, that’s just freaking great. ‘Watch this!’ The two most dangerous words in the English language. I’m getting out of here before lightning strikes.
Theodore Jerome Cohen
A wise man does not always admit to everything he knows. And sometimes an overly-credulous friend can be a source of mild amusement.”~Sherlock Holmes
Stephanie Osborn
Sometimes you gotta say what's in your heart... And you have to stand for what you believe. No matter what." ~'Dr. Michael C. Anders,
Stephanie Osborn
Well, it is generally considered— though not always true— that the wife of a man so honoured is likely also to be worthy of the honour, and so it is accorded her. In the event it is false, and I have known that to be so in more than one circumstance , it is still accorded her in deference to her husband."~Sherlock Holmes, with respect to aristocratic titles
Stephanie Osborn
Watson fully comprehended the fact that occasionally it is useful for one’s adversaries to underestimate one’s abilities.”~Sherlock Holmes
Stephanie Osborn
I am looking forward to fully understanding what is occurring. Other than the fact that we are well over a century in my future—if it is MY future; in America, in an underground government facility of some sort near the Colorado Rocky Mountains, specifically Pikes Peak, so I assume the nearest city of any import to be Colorado Springs…I am afraid I have little grasp of your project.”~Sherlock Holmes
Stephanie Osborn
Suddenly the images in the center of the room became more than images. They solidified.
Stephanie Osborn
That’s our cue,” Dr. Chadwick noted, managing to approximate a cheerful smile, addressing the room at large. “Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they’re apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn’t that fry your noggin?
Stephanie Osborn
I want her beyond reason. I need to own, consume, worship, devour. What I've made of her in my mind cannot live in flesh.
Mark Lawrence
Failure is a stepping stone for Success.....and Success may become a stepping stone for Excess!!
Ankala V Subbarao
I knew I was putting you under immense pressure when I rejected your work the other day. I set an impossible deadline - yet you have met it with work that I can only call outstanding. As your teacher, I had to push you to your limits so that you could recognize your own true potential.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
What did the Romans say? “De gustibus non est disputandum”: It is worthless to discuss personal taste. It is called 'personal' for a reason.
Massimo Marino
Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.
Mark Lawrence
If only the physical aspects of hatha yoga are used, it is called ghatastha yoga (ghata means “physical effort”). Modern expressions like “fitness yoga” and “power yoga” that flourish within gym classes are within the same category, even if they do not derive from the original exercises’ rhythm and succession. In many instances “power yoga” has a positive effect on physical health; but if there is no aim to ease the mind, to gain self-insight and control of your thoughts, and to experience the divine within you and within the universe, the deeper meaning of yoga and - possibly life - is lost.
Stig Åvall Severinsen
The inner self is as distinct from the outer self as heaven is from earth.
Emanuel Swedenborg
When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things...
René Descartes
Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects?
René Descartes
Sometimes one must become something one fears or loathes in order for the greater self to survive.
Alex Lamb
So much learning," one of my Jesuit teachers has said, "so little wisdom." To put it another way, a civilization does become more technologically skilled and more learned about science, and perhaps even a little smarter as well, when it is permitted to grow for hundreds of years and spread itself from pole to pole; but we also have more tools to turn out as badly as our ancestors said we might.
Charles Pellegrino
It is purity of spirit that will keep corruption from the flesh
Mark Lawrence
People are unaware that spirits even exist, let alone that angels are present with them.
Emanuel Swedenborg
By Fortune's adverse buffets overborneTo solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,And not in utter loneliness to live,Myself at last did to the Devil give!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Night-time. Why is it, I wonder… Always, always it is at night whenThe fury of a hurricane makes itself felt. Perhaps it is because the spirit of the storm Delights in the darkness, for there it can Unleash its rage most potently, most Anonymously, upon the element of earth? Or perhaps it is simply because we Humans are afraid of the dark.
Stephanie Osborn
Once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe