Science and Reason

Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

E = mc 2 .

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility … The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.

Do not all charms fly

I refute it thus.

The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.

Logic is like the sword—those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence, for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions.

The man who listens to Reason is lost: Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.

Is there any self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name?

He who does not understand the supreme certainty of mathematics is wallowing in confusion.

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

Many will think they may reasonably blame me by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverence by their inexperienced judgments; not considering that my works are the issue of pure and simple experience.

It’s not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

To me it seems that those sciences are vain and full of error which are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, first-hand experience which in its origins, or means, or end has passed through one of the five senses.

All objects transmit their image to the eye in pyramids and the nearer to the eye these pyramids are intersected the smaller will the image appear of the objects which cause them.

One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.

Test knowledge through experience, be prepared to make mistakes, and be persistent about it.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

He could distinguish and divide A hair ’twixt south and southwest side, On either which he would dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute.

He’d run in debt by disputation, And pay with ratiocination.