Quotes · Skopia

115 quotes

There is grandeur in this view of life...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 9.8

Scientific literature

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 8.5

Scientific literature

I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of the Species · 1859

★ 7.9

Scientific literature

Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.

Isaac Newton

Principia · 1687

★ 7.5

Scientific literature

Moreover, in a system of two bodies mutually acting upon each other, since the differences between their centres and the common centre of gravity of both are reciprocally as the bodies, the relative motions of those bodies, whether of approaching to or of receding from that centre, will be equal junong themselves. Therefore since the changes which happen to motions are equal and directed to contrary parts.

Isaac Newton

Principia · 1687

★ 7.3

Scientific literature

Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if we only face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open."

Nicolaus Copernicus

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres · 1543

★ 7.0

Scientific literature

We had found the secret of life!

Francis Crick

1968

★ 6.9

Scientific literature

We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 6.3

Scientific literature

All we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown.

William Harvey

1628

★ 6.1

Scientific literature

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?"

Alan Turing

Computing Machinery and Intelligence · 1950

★ 6.1

Scientific literature

Yet I doe seriously, and upon good grounds, affirme it possible to make a flying Chariot. In which a man may sit, and give such a motion unto it, as shall convey him through the aire. And this perhaps might bee made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with foode for their viaticum, and commodities for traffique. It is not the bignesse of any thing in this kind, that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swimmes as well as a small corke, and an Eagle flies in the aire as well as a little gnat... So that notwithstanding all these seeming impossibilities, 'tis likely enough, that there may be a meanes invented of journying to the Moone; And how happy shall they be, that are first successfull in this attempt?

John Wilkins

A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet · 1640

★ 6.0

Scientific literature

If we assume that the last breath of, say, Julius Caesar, has by now become thoroughly scattered through the atmosphere, then the chances are that each of us inhales one molecule of it with every breath we take.

James Jeans

An Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases · 1940

★ 5.9

Scientific literature

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Aristotle

350 BC

★ 5.6

Scientific literature

Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1859

★ 5.5

Scientific literature

When the views advanced by me in this volume, and by Mr. Wallace, or when analogous views on the origin of species are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history.

Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species · 1879

★ 5.5

Treatise · Scientific literature

God in the Beginning form'd Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles, of such Sizes and Figures, and with such other Properties, and in such Proportion to Space, as most conduced to the End for which he form'd them.

Isaac Newton

Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light · 1704

★ 5.4

Scientific literature

Although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the interior of the solid globe.

Charles Lyell

Principles of Geology · 1830

★ 5.2

Scientific literature · Psychological literature

If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.

Abraham Maslow

The Psychology of Science · 1966

★ 5.2

Scientific literature

Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the comencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament which the Great First Cause endured with animality... And thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!

Erasmus Darwin

Zoonomia · 1794

★ 5.1

Scientific literature

Thought is only a gleam in the midst of a long night. But it is this gleam which is everything.

Henri Poincare

The Value of Science · 1905

★ 5.1

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