Bryant Conant Quotes & Sayings

A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place. — James Bryant Conant

A Harvard education consists of what you learn at Harvard while you are not studying. — James Bryant Conant

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science-that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves. — James Bryant Conant

Science is a dynamic undertaking directed to lowering the degree of the empiricism involved in solving problems; or, if you prefer, science is a process of fabricating a web of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiments and observations and fruitful of further experiments and observations. — James Bryant Conant

Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases. — James Bryant Conant

The Americans' clothes were meanwhile passing through poison gas. Body lice and bacteria and fleas were dying by the billions. So it goes. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

We have a saying in France. A dog doesn't make a cat. — Yannick Noah

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences. — James Bryant Conant

We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn't that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it's a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it's all mixed up together, it's us: humanness. — Pema Chodron

YEAH, I KNOW. You guys are going to read about how I died in agony, and you're going be like, "Wow! That sounds cool, Magnus! Can I die in agony too?" No. Just no. Don't go jumping off any rooftops. Don't run into the highway or set yourself on fire. It doesn't work that way. You will not end up where I ended up. — Rick Riordan

Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free
society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation. — James Bryant Conant

Science advances, not by the accumulation of new facts, but by the continuos development of new concepts. — James Bryant Conant

Whether a man lives or dies in vain can be measured only by the way he faces his own problems, by the success or failure of the inner conflict within his own soul. And of this no one may know save God. — James Bryant Conant

It seems as though I were in a lunatic asylum, but I am never sure who is the attendant and who the inmate. — James Bryant Conant

The stumbling way in which even the ablest of the scientists in every generation have had to fight through thickets of erroneous observations, misleading generalizations, inadequate formulation, and unconscious prejudice is rarely appreciated by those who obtain their scientific knowledge from textbooks. — James Bryant Conant

Everybody deserves fair treatment, equal treatment in the eyes of the law and the state.
And that includes gays, lesbians, transgender persons. I am not a fan of discrimination and bullying of anybody on the basis of race, on the basis of religion, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender. This is actually part and parcel of the agenda that's also going to be front and centre, and that is how are we treating women and girls. — Barack Obama

Public education is a great instrument of social change. Through it, if we so desire, we can make our country more nearly a democracy without classes. To do so will require the efforts of us all-teachers, administrators, taxpayers and statesmen. Education is a social process, perhaps the most important process in determining the future of our country; it should command a far larger portion of our national income than it does today. — James Bryant Conant

The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier. — James Bryant Conant

That would require faith. I do not beliebe in faith. I believe it exists but I do not believe it works. I don't know what the rules are here; I can't risk throwing everything away on a long shot. — Iain Banks

Even the development of the steam engine owed but little to the advancement of science. — James Bryant Conant

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. — James Bryant Conant

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings, only one thing endures and that is character. — Horace Greeley

Scientific research is compounded of ... empirical procedures, general speculative ideas, and mathematical or abstract reasoning. — James Bryant Conant

Activities that seem to represent choices are often inert reproductions of accepted practice. — Shoshana Zuboff

God it's good to be here walkin together, my friend. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

How smoothly one becomes, not a cheat, exactly, not really a liar, just a man who'll say anything for pay. — Sloan Wilson

Behavior which appears superficially correct but is intrinsically corrupt always irritates those who see below the surface. — James Bryant Conant

I venture to define science as a series of interconnected concepts and conceptual schemes arising from experiment and observation and fruitful of further experiments and observations. The test of a scientific theory is, I suggest, its fruitfulness. — James Bryant Conant

Let the children come,' and they ran from the trees toward her. 'Let your mothers hear you laugh,' she told them. And the woods rang. The adults looked on and could not help smiling. Then, 'let the grown men come,' she shouted. They stepped out one by one from among the ringing trees. 'Let your wives and your children see you dance,' she told them. And ground life shuddered beneath their feet. Finally, she called the women to her. 'Cry,' she told them. 'For the living and the dead, just cry.' And without covering their eyes, the women let loose. It started that way, laughing children, dancing men, crying women. And then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced. Men sat down and cried. Children danced. Women laughed. Children cried until exhausted. — Toni Morrison

Most people do not ever pick up the phone. They never ask, and that is what separates the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You have to act, and you have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to crash and burn, because if you are afraid of failing, you will not get very far. — Steve Jobs

Just like a turtle, we only make progress if we stick our neck out. — James Bryant Conant

Therefore, a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result is a fantasia which is neither history nor science. — James Bryant Conant

He who enters a university walks on hallowed ground. — James Bryant Conant

A lot of more modern films seem to just be out for violence or sex or what have you, without relating it to what's going within human beings. But every now and then one comes along that does that, and it's a joy. — Kim Hunter

Every vital organization owes its birth and life to an exciting and daring idea. — James Bryant Conant

We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us. — Jacque Fresco

Education is what is left after all that has been learnt is forgotten. — James Bryant Conant

In every section of the entire area where the word science may properly be applied, the limiting factor is a human one. We shall have rapid or slow advance in this direction or in that depending on the number of really first-class men who are engaged in the work in question ... So in the last analysis, the future of science in this country will be determined by our basic educational policy. — James Bryant Conant

Art flouts convention. Convention became convention because it works. — Stewart Brand