Clever Science Quotes & Sayings

Most of you will probably never really discover anything. You may not contribute anything to the great equations that describe the universe to the world. But you will have the good fortune of encountering people of exceptional intelligence. People who are much smarter than you. Never get in their way, never group together in disgruntled circles and play games. Respect talent, real talent. Worship it. Clever people will always be disliked. Don't exploit that to crawl your way to the top. By the laws of probability most of you are mediocre. Accept it. The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how "standards are falling". So don't mull. Just know when you've to get out of the way. Most of you will be sideshows, extras in the grand unfolding of truth. That's all right. Once you accept that and let the best brains do their jobs, you will have done your service to science and mankind. — Manu Joseph

The gods. We think we understand, we've invented science, but we haven't a clue. Maybe the clever people are not the ones who think they're clever. Maybe the clever people are the ones who accept they know nothing. — Rachel Joyce

Perhaps, if science is clever enough to see, it will realize that religion may not be too far off with its concrete imagery; and that relative to the supreme creator, we humans are much like the microorganisms we scrutinize under the microscope. — Robert Lanza

Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth."
"Um, okay. So what is it?"
"Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering? ... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about. — John Green

Is this a topic whose time has truly come? The integration of science and religion? Or have I just written a clever book that temporarily impressed a few people and will otherwise go as quickly as it came? — Ken Wilber

Few female characters get to be "the Chosen One" in science fiction and fantasy. Leia is as much the child of Darth Vader as Luke is, but only Luke gets to use the force, be recruited by his dad and ultimately save the day. We don't get impossibly clever female sleuths or the sexy spies with the awesome gadgets. And on the rare occasions that we do get those characters, they're denigrated as unrealistic Mary Sues. — Rhiannon Thomas

We repeat like a religious mantra the unquestioned benefits and power of science, information and economics, without inspecting the structures and methodology on which they are built. Many of these beliefs are insupportable and dangerous. For example, the notion that human beings are so clever that we can use science and technology to escape the restrictions of the natural world is a fantasy that cannot be fulfilled. Yet it underlies much of government's and industry's rhetoric and programs. — David Suzuki

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics. — George Crumb

I've just finished reading some of my early papers, and you know, when I'd finished I said to myself, 'Rutherford, my boy, you used to be a damned clever fellow.' (1911) — Ernest Rutherford

For the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such quality as to bear division and transference. He had indeed once declared, though not to her, that on one occasion he had noticed himself to be possessed by five distinct infatuations at the same time. If this were true, his differed from the highest affection as the lower orders of the animal world differ from advanced organisms, partition causing not death but a multiplied existence. — Thomas Hardy

I do not underestimate the difficulty of the challenge that global climate change presents to us. It will take a significant effort and the best talent and technology we have to solve the problem. — Federico Pena

I like physics. I think it is the best science out of all three of them, because generally it's more useful. You learn about speed and velocity and time, and that's all clever stuff. — Tom Felton

There is talk of a new astrologer [Nicolaus Copernicus] who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must ... invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth.
[Martin Luther stating his objection to heliocentrism due to his Scripture's geocentrism] — Martin Luther

And below, the notebook filled with fine cursive script, laying out in strict order conclusion and delusion, mingling myth and science, drawing from learned men and legends, all of it based on the power of dreams. To any casual observer, it could be either a muddle of half-thought-out nonsense or, at best, the outline for a clever-silly novel. Only to me did it have the look of a careful, deliberate plan. In — Diana Gabaldon

The Americans were very clever; they sent rockets into space and invented machines which could think more quickly than any human being alive, but all this cleverness could also make them blind. They did not understand other people. They thought that everyone looked at things in the same way as Americans did, but they were wrong. Science was only part of the truth. There were also many other things that made the world what it was, and the Americans often failed to notice these things, although they were there all the time, under their noses. — Alexander McCall Smith

It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational - and I'm speaking the written science fiction, not 'Star Trek.' Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they're clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff. — Terry Pratchett

She felt utterly crushed and betrayed. Science had betrayed her. She had always believed deep down that science would not judge her, even if people did. Her father's books had opened to her touch easily enough. His journals had not flinched from her all too female gaze. But it seemed that science had weighed her, labelled her and found her wanting. Science had decreed that she could not be clever ... and that if by some miracle she was clever, it meant that there was something terribly wrong with her. — Frances Hardinge

Move on to the Qs: Quiet and Quirky. Take some quiet time for more review and reflection. This will help you feel your way around all the "I can't because's" that come to mind as you think about focusing on what you truly wish to be and do. The process will help you move on to renewal. And the quirky? That's the core that's truly you, the idiosyncratic self, a force that now — Mark Evan Chimsky

Right there in that room, listening to the tape Laura gave me, I decided that I wanted something more than what I'd allowed myself to become. Listening to the voices and piano notes fade in and out, I decided that I wanted to be happy. If I had to fight for things in life, I wanted to fight for something bigger than the right to eat with a fork. I wanted to love and be loved and feel alive. I had no idea how to find my way, but listening to that music wash over me, I felt, for the first time, that the struggle I faced would be worth it. — Eric Nuzum

I am taking you out. On a date. Before things get crazy. — Cynthia Hand

In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev's willingness to accept Kennedy's hegemonic demands. — Noam Chomsky

In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science. — Michael Leunig

My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever - the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn't have a bed, and he slept on a table. — M.I.A.

I don't know if I hadn't grown up poor, and in the neighborhood I did, if I would have had that much to bring to my art form. I call upon my past with characters. — Ving Rhames

To ensure a well-motivated participant, Pfungst rewarded Clever Hans with a small piece of bread, carrot or sugar each time he responded (interestingly, this same procedure still works well with most undergraduate students today). — Richard Wiseman

Clara Oswald: This is just a dream, but very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you're afraid, but being afraid is all right, because didn't anybody ever tell you fear is a superpower? Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger.
And one day, you'll come back to this barn and on that day you're going to be very afraid indeed. But that's ok because if you're very wise and very strong, fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind.
It doesn't matter if there's nothing under the bed or in the dark, so long as you know it's ok to be afraid of it. You're always going to be afraid, even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that's ok, because fear can bring us together.
Fear can bring you home.
I'm going to leave you with something just so you always remember: Fear makes companions of us all. -Listen, Doctor Who, episode 8.4 — Steven Moffat

People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth. — Martin Luther

We're as clever as we think we are, but we'll be a lot cleverer when we learn to use not just one brain but to pool huge numbers of brains. We're at a level technologically where we can share information and think collectively about our problems. We do it in science all the time - there's no reason why we can't do it in other endeavors. — Lewis Thomas

I think Douglas was a real one-off. He was so clever and so intelligent and so well read in real science that he could make science fiction work as well as it did. And just such fun to have around, he was just such a lovely man. — Lalla Ward

The goal of the Redemption is the redemption of truth. — Vilna Gaon

The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it. — Comte De Lautreamont

The world of strict naturalism in which clever mathematical laws all by themselves bring the universe and life into existence, is pure (and, one might add, poor) fiction. To call it science-fiction would besmirch the name of science. — John C. Lennox

I don't believe that math and nature respond to democracy. Just because very clever people have rejected the role of the infinite, their collective opinions, however weighty, won't persuade mother nature to alter her ways. Nature is never wrong. — Janna Levin