If I ask you who is the most famous scientist who ever lived, or the greatest scientist who ever lived you'll say either Einstein or Newton or something like that because their claims were supposed to apply universally. But the claim of somebody who is studying a particular feature of the evolutionary process like whether it's very fast or very slow, or occurs in steps and so on, that's not a universal claim, that's a rather specialised claim and so you can't claim to great fame and great success.
I'm happy that people think of me as the greatest tap-dancer that ever lived. But it's just a rumor. Because the greatest dancer that ever lived knows everything, and I don't. I'm still learning. I still have a lot of work to do.
No scientist or student of science, need ever read an original work of the past. As a general rule, he does not think of doing so. Rutherford was one of the greatest experimental physicists, but no nuclear scientist today would study his researches of fifty years ago. Their substance has all been infused into the common agreement, the textbooks, the contemporary papers, the living present.
Charles Darwin [is my personal favorite Fellow of the Royal Society]. I suppose as a physical scientist I ought to have chosen Newton. He would have won hands down in an IQ test, but if you ask who was the most attractive personality then Darwin is the one you'd wish to meet. Newton was solitary and reclusive, even vain and vindictive in his later years when he was president of the society.
Many of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography.Boswell was one ofthesmallest menthat ever lived and he has beaten them all.
Since I stayed in a colony where either one was an engineer or a scientist, everybody thought I would be a scientist. This was the expectation everybody had apart from my parents. Honestly, I, too, wanted to be a scientist. I think it was the way Dad would explain us scientific theories and concepts that made the subject more intriguing.
I would never deny that Jack Nicklaus is the greatest player who ever lived.
I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived.
On two legs, Mickey Mantle would have been the greatest ballplayer who ever lived.
I think Wes Montgomery is the greatest jazz guitarist that ever lived.
I'm the greatest thing that ever lived! I'm the king of the world! I'm a bad man. I'm the prettiest thing that ever lived.
If I could relive my life, what I would do is work with scientists. But not one scientist, because they're locked into their little specializations. I'd go from scientist to scientist to scientist, like a bee goes from flower to flower.
If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king.
Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived... I would uncover my head and kneel down on his tomb.
I mean, my dad, is really the biggest leadership influence in my life and I believe Jesus was the greatest leaders that ever lived and I think He had the most impact on humanity of anybody who ever walked the planet.
I think the thing that he wants even more that would solidify his position would be a couple championships. Hopefully we can get that done. Peyton Manning is already in the conversation of the greatest player to ever play and if he wins one or two more, he probably ends up being the greatest quarterback to ever play the game.