Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

If there is no struggle there is no progress.

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

We have no claim to share in the glory of our ancestors unless we strive to resemble them.

Without speculation there is no good and original observation.

The presence of a body of well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated; as all high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work material progress of all kinds mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advantages.

The present is saturated with the past and pregnant with the future.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.

Nature acts without masters.

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave mistakes if he ignores these two great truths of population zoology: no two individuals are alike, and both environment and genetic endowment make a contribution to nearly every trait.

...most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.

Evolution as such is no longer a theory for a modern author. It is as much a fact as that the earth revolves around the sun.

...anyone who writes about "Darwin's theory of evolution" in the singular, without segregating the theories of gradual evolution, common descent, speciation, and the mechanism of natural selection, will be quite unable to discuss the subject competently.

Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts...

Mathematics is as little a science as grammar is a language.

Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.