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Science Quotes by Lewis Thomas

54 Science quotes by Lewis Thomas

All Science quotes Lewis Thomas’s page

A curious mind marvels at humanity’s spectacular life and the urge to understand the universe. The quotes praise DNA as the fundamental building block and acknowledge that recognizing our own ignorance is a great scientific achievement. They also stress the need for flexible, ever‑learning scientists.

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The most solid piece of scientific truth I know of is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature.

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Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.

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The greatest of all the accomplishments of 20th century science has been the discovery of human ignorance

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Chemical waste products are the droppings of science.

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The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.

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Montaigne simply turns his mind loose and writes whatever he feels like writing. Mostly, he wants to say that reason is not…

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Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were…

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In real life, every field of science is incomplete, and most of them - whatever the record of accomplishment during the last…

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The central task of science is to arrive, stage by stage, at a clearer comprehension of nature, but this does not at…

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Cats are a standing rebuke to behavioral scientists wanting to know how the minds of animals work. The mind of a cat…

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In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable…

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We do not understand much of anything, from... the "big bang" , all the way down to the particles in the atoms…

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It is not a simple life to be a single cell, although I have no right to say so, having been a…

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The greatest achievements in the science of this [twentieth] century are themselves the sources of more puzzlement than human beings have ever…

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We are at our human finest, dancing with our minds, when there are more choices than two. Sometimes there are ten, even…

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I am entitled to say, if I like, that awareness exists in all the individual creatures on the planet-worms, sea urchins, gnats,…

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The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic…

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Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and…

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It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with…

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I do not understand modern physics at all, but my colleagues who know a lot about the physics of very small things,…

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On any Tuesday morning, if asked, a good working scientist will tell you with some self-satisfaction that the affairs of his field…

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“Not all social animals are social with the same degree of commitment. In some species, the members are so tied to each…

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“The individual parts played by other instrumentalists-- crickets or earthworms, for instance-- may not have the sound of music by themselves, but…

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“It is not a simple thing to decide where we fit, for at one time or another in our lives we manage…

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“Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would…

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“It is hard to feel affection for something as totally impersonal as the atmosphere, and yet there it is, as much a…

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“It is in our collective behavior that we are the most mysterious. We won't be able to construct machines like ourselves until…

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“Working on a typewriter by touch, like riding a bicycle or strolling on a path, is best done by not giving it…

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“Perhaps it is in this respect that language differs most sharply from other biologic systems for communication. Ambiguity seems to be an…

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“However, I have a stronger hunch that the greatest part of the important biomedical research waiting to be done is in the…

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It is not so bad being ignorant if you are totally ignorant; the hard thing is knowing in some detail the reality…

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Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive…

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The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and…

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It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be…

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All of today's DNA, strung through all the cells of the earth, is simply an extension and elaboration of [the] first molecule.

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I cannot think of a single field in biology or medicine in which we can claim genuine understanding, and it seems to…

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We need science, more and better science, not for its technology, not for leisure, not even for health or longevity, but for…

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The overwhelming astonishment, the queerest structure we know about so far in the whole universe, the greatest of all cosmological scientific puzzles,…

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We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness,…

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Animals have genes for altruism, and those genes have been selected in the evolution of many creatures because of the advantage they…

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More by Lewis Thomas

“We are endowed with genes which code out our reaction to beavers and otters, maybe our reaction to each other as well. We are…

We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness…

“It is not a simple thing to decide where we fit, for at one time or another in our lives we manage to organize…

It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by…

If an idea cannot move on its own, pushing it doesn't help; best to let it lie there.

Left to ourselves, mechanistic and autonomic, we hanker for friends.

I do not agree with this century's fashion of running down the human species as a failed try, a doomed sport. At our worst,…

It would seem to me... an offense against nature, for us to come on the same scene endowed as we are with the curiosity,…

The drive to be useful is encoded in our genes. But when we gather in very large numbers, as in the modern nation-state, we…

I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach into outer space on the Voyager spacecraft. But that would be boasting.

“Nature abhors a long silence.”

“The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most…

We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature;…

“The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single…

Having long suspected that there was something alive in there, running the place, separate from everything else, absolutely individual and independent, we've celebrated by…