A Quote by Humphry Davy

Experimental science hardly ever affords us more than approximations to the truth; and whenever many agents are concerned we are in great danger of being mistaken.

Humphry Davy

Quote Topics

Agents Being Concerned Danger Ever Experimental Experimental Science Great Hardly Many Mistaken More Science Than Truth Us Whenever

Quote Author

Humphry Davy
British - Scientist
December 17, 1778 - May 29, 1829

We don't know how large a proportion of the significant evidence about the universe is excluded by science. Perhaps hardly any. Perhaps so great a proportion that any body of knowledge which excludes it is hardly more than a caricature. Perhaps something in between - so that science finds truth but not the whole truth.

Kitty Ferguson

Science is about finding ever better approximations rather than pretending you have already found ultimate truth. A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Friedrich Nietzsche

In order to be truthful We must do more than speak the truth. We must also hear truth. We must also receive truth. We must also act upon truth. We must also search for truth. The difficult truth Within us and around us. We must devote ourselves to truth. Otherwise we are dishonest And our lives are mistaken. God grant us the strength and the courage To be truthful. Amen

Michael Leunig

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.

Bertrand Russell

I would have far more fear of being mistaken, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true.

Blaise Pascal

Gradually, ... the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature. It is because science gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has more social importance than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal, but not the superior, of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little intrinsic value, has a practical importance to which art cannot aspire.

Bertrand Russell

The remarkable insights that science affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an explanation more profound than that which itself can provide. Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the creation of god, must be humble enough to learn from science what that world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually enriching.

John Polkinghorne

Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It's true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care. Once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant

Socrates

Norman Mailer in his writings is ultimately more concerned with success than with danger; danger is only a means to success.

Susan Sontag

If the experimental physicist has already done a great deal of work in this field, nevertheless the theoretical physicist has still hardly begun to evaluate the experimental material which may lead him to conclusions about the structure of the atom.

Johannes Stark

many lesbians were so far in the closet they were in danger of being mistaken for garment bags.

Rita Mae Brown

Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals--and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am notsure would ever feel this way--some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.

Lyndon B. Johnson

The problem of evil is raised more often by spectators of life than the actual combatants. You will hardly ever find that the great sufferers are the great skeptics.

James Stewart

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Carl Sagan

This missing science of heredity, this unworked mine of knowledge on the borderland of biology and anthropology, which for all practical purposes is as unworked now as it was in the days of Plato, is, in simple truth, ten times more important to humanity than all the chemistry and physics, all the technical and indsutrial science that ever has been or ever will be discovered.