Thursday, July 12, 2012

Thursday extracts: scientists speaking

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. - Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)


The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land. - T. H. Huxley (1825 - 1895)

I think nature's imagination is so much greater than Man's. She's never going to let us relax. - Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)
 
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Ways of saying the same thing. A few centuries apart.

1 comment:

snafu said...

Curiosity killed the cat as we‘ve been told of yore,
But curiosity drove Columbus to another shore,
Medicine and picture books, alcohol and fire,
Electricity and bicycles and the tall church spire,
Bright plastic toys and radio and flying in the sky,
Are only there because of how and what and if and why?