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Scientist Quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

10 Scientist quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

All Scientist quotes Kurt Vonnegut’s page

If you’ve ever wondered how a novelist sees the lab coat, Vonnegut’s handful of observations offer a sharp, humorous lens on the scientific mind. These ten snippets capture his trademark irony while nudging us to think about the role of curiosity in society.

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I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better.

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Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan.

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“Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan. -…

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I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it's unscientific. No…

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During the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman announced that the new high was banana peels taken rectally. So then FBI scientists stuffed banana…

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The most racist, nastiest act by America, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had…

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They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. Look, my body and your body are…

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After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb,…

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Where you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's…

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I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that…

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More by Kurt Vonnegut

“You must bloom as a writer and I must bloom as a painter. Everything else about us is uninteresting.”

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“People aren't supposed to look back.”

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“Have a good nap, did you?” said the porter. “Yes,” said Billy. “Man,” said the porter, “you sure had a hard-on.”

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“I told him that if we doubted that we are demons in Hell, he should read The Mysterious Stranger, which Mark Twain wrote in…

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“Thomas Jefferson High School [..] His high school was named after a slave owner who was also one of the world’s greatest theoreticians on…

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“I had a certain amount of skill as a dramatist, and Dr. Goebbels wanted me to use it”

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I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.

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“The town was Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A., Earth, Solar System, Milky Way.”

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“Her face was one of a kind, a surprising variation that made observers think, Yes--that would be another very nice way for people to…

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“You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo. “Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that…

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“Like all Earthlings at the point of death, Mary Young sent faint reminders of herself to those who had known her. She released a…

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“And contrast Mary Kathleen, if you will, with my wife Ruth, the Ophelia of the death camps, who believed that even the most intelligent…

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Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if,…

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“They were going back to the slaughterhouse for souvenirs of the war.”

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“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty…

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