A perfect personality ... is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of w...ork, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist,--the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It doesn't matter whether you're talking about bombs or the intelligence quotients of one race as against another ... if a man is ...a scientist, like me, he'll always say "Publish and be damned."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is ...cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Plant, breed, produce, But what you raise or grow, why, feed it out,... Eat it or plow it under where it stands, To build the soil.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opini...ons. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Any adequate analysis or (if I may use the term) rational reconstruction of the method of science must comprise the statement that... the scientist qua scientist accepts or rejects hypotheses; and further that an analysis of that statement would reveal it to entail that the scientist qua scientist makes value judgments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no kind of false Wit which has been so recommended by the Practice of all Ages, as that which consists in a Jingle of Wor...ds, and is comprehended under the general Name of Punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a Weed, which the Soil has a natural Disposition to produce. The seeds of Punning are in the Minds of all Men, and tho' they may be subdued by Reason, Reflection, and good Sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest Genius, that is not broken and cultivated by the Rules of Art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raise the Mind to Poetry, Painting, Musick, or other more noble Arts, it often breaks out in Punns and Quibbles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »