Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men
must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge .
— Enrico Fermi
It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything
upon insufficient evidence.
— W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876
You see but you do not observe.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in “The Memoirs of Sherlock
Holmes”
A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.
— George Wald
Fourth Law of Thermodymanics: If the probability of success is not
almost one, then it is damn near zero.
— David Ellis
The Swartzberg Test: The validity of a science is its ability to
predict.
— Swartzberg
We don’t know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn’t a
fish.
— John Culkin
And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden
silence, turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said.
Wide-eyed, the Child raised his voice and said once again, “Why, the
Emperor has no clothes! He is naked!”
— “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work? A stick!
— Bill Kirchenbaum
Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking
what no one else has thought.
— Albert Szent-Gyorgi
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you
hit the target.
— Ashleigh Brilliant
If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z X is work. Y
is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
— Albert Einstein
In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is
true or becomes true.
— John Lilly
Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature,
because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the
software engineer.
— Fred Brooks, Jr.