James Jeans Quotes

22 quotes in 438 categories

• In this model, the sun is a very tiny speck of dust indeed-a speck less than a three-thousandth of an inch in diameter ... Think…
• Humanity is at the very beginning of its existence-a new-born babe, with all the unexplored potentialities of babyhood; and until the last few moments its…
• ...nature seems very conversant with the rules of pure mathematics, as our own mathematicians have formulated them in their studies, out of their own inner…
• The essential fact is that all the pictures which science now draws of nature, and which alone seem capable of according with observational facts, are…
• We have already considered with disfavour the possibility of the universe having been planned by a biologist or an engineer; from the intrinsic evidence of…
• ...to many it is not knowledge but the quest for knowledge that gives greater interest to thought-to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
• Science should leave off making pronouncements: the river of knowledge has too often turned back on itself.
• Sciences usually advances by a succession of small steps, through a fog in which even the most keen-sighted explorer can seldom see more than a…
• Kant, discussing the various modes of perception by which the human mind apprehends nature, concluded that it is specially prone to see nature through mathematical…
• We may as well cut out group theory. That is a subject that will never be of any use in physics.
• The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a machine. Mind…
• The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.[make the best of what is…
• All discussion of the ultimate nature of things must necessarily be barren unless we have some extraneous standards against which to compare them.
• One must stand stiller than still. On reverse time travel.
• The motion of the stars over our heads is as much an illusion as that of the cows, trees and churches that flash past the…
• The plain fact is that there are no conclusions. If we must state a conclusion, it would be that many of the former conclusions of…
• The universe can best be pictured as consisting of pure thought, the thought of what for want of a better word we must describe as…
• Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral, and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space is with stars.
• To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.
• The plain fact is that there are no conclusions.

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