Quotations

 

1

The very greatest things, great thoughts, discoveries, inventions, have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty. - Samuel Smiles

 

2
There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo

3
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. - Galileo Galilei

4
In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell

5
I didn't think; I experimented. - Wilhelm Roentgen

6
May every young scientist remember and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery. - Patrick Blackett

7
Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. - Wernher von Braun

8
In truth great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you know it but little you will be able to love it only a little or not at all. - Leonardo da Vinci

9
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. - R. Buckminster Fuller

10
Most secrets of knowledge have been discovered by plain and neglected men than by men of popular fame. And this is so with good reason. For the men of popular fame are busy on popular matters. - Roger Bacon

11
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. - Sir William Bragg

12
Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein

13
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck

14
As for the search for truth, I know from my own painful searching, with its many blind alleys, how hard it is to take a reliable step, be it ever so small, towards the understanding of that which is truly significan't. - Albert Einstein

15
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' - Isaac Asimov

16
Astronomers are coming to suspect that there is something more out there, an unknown substance that has come to be called dark matter. And not knowing what constitutes this dark matter inhibits investigators' full understanding of how the universe constructed its vast array of objects. The luminous stars and galaxies could be mere whitecaps, whose gleaming presence diverts our eyes from a hidden ocean of matter right below. - Marcia Bartusia

17
Now we are confident that the universe is formed from non-material primary substance, which may be described as the shadow charge that gives birth to all things. - Shiuji Inomata and Yoshiyuki Mita

18
Whether this vast homogeneous expanse of isotropic matter is fitted not only to be a medium of physical interaction between distant bodies, and to fulfil other physical functions of which perhaps we have as yet no conception, but also to constitute the material organism of beings exercising functions of life and mind as high or higher than ours are at present is a question far transcending the limits of physical speculation. - Clerk Maxwell

19
The quick harvest of applied science is the useable process, the medicine, the machine. The shy fruit of pure science is understanding. - Lincoln Barnett

20
If I have been able to see farther than others, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants. - Sir Isaac Newton

21
Every disturbance of the ether, including radiation as one type of disturbance, is originated by translatory motion of electrons through the ether. The ether is a perfect fluid endowed with rotational elasticity. - Sir Joseph Larmor

22
The theory I propose may be called a theory of the Electromagnetic Field because it has to do with the space in the neighborhood of the electric or magnetic bodies, and it may be called a Dynamical Theory, because it assumes that in that space there is matter in motion, by which the observed electromagnetic phenomena are produced. Maxwell even went on to add: "In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. All energy is the same as mechanical energy, whether it exists in the form of motion or in that of elasticity, or in any other form. The energy in electromagnetic phenomena is mechanical energy. - Clerk Maxwell

23
All the major breakthroughs come from small guys in back rooms somewhere doing the impossible, because the big guys know it's impossible and they've got this rule book that says what will work and what won't work. - Les Adam

24
Maxwell and Faraday, the pioneers of electromagnetism, believed that the fields consisted of matter in motion. This is stated in no uncertain terms in Maxwell's book "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field". In fact, Maxwell used a dynamical model to derive his famous equations. This fact has all but been lost in current books on electromagnetic theory. The quantity which Maxwell called "electromagnetic momentum" is now referred to as the "vector potential".

25
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. - Arthur C Clarke

26
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. - Max Planck

27
It is not uncommon for engineers to accept the reality of phenomena that are not yet understood, as it is very common for physicists to disbelieve the reality of phenomena that seem to contradict contemporary beliefs of physics. - H. Bauer

28
The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science - Robert Olson

29
There are weighty arguments to be abdicated in favour of the ether hypothesis. To deny the ether is intimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. The fundamental facts of mechanics do not harmonise with this view. According to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualitys; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media. The idea of motion [locomotion] may not be applied to it. - Albert Einstein

30
In 1644 Descartes described every star as surrounded by a vortex of ether, in which the planets were carried around like leaves trapped within a swirling whirlpool. - Marcia Bartusiak

31
Today the vacuum [of space] is not regarded as empty. It is a sea of dynamic energy, like the spray of foam near a turbulent waterfall. - Harold Puthoff

32
All the extra gravitational tugs pulling at the Milky Way and other galaxies currently support the notion that there is ten to twenty times more dark matter than luminous cosmic material. But the story gets more complicated. The most fashionable cosmological theories contend that the dark matter is actually a hundred times more plentiful than the luminous stars and galaxies. Theorists believe that the universe began not only with a bang but with a sort of cosmic burp known as inflation - a brief instant when space - time did more than expand; it tore outward like a science-fiction spaceship in warp drive. And at the end of this super burst of expansion, a flood of bizarre (yet to be discovered) particles was supposedly generated that far outweighs the ordinary, visible stuff that makes up both people and planets. - Marcia Bartusiak

33
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. - Isaac Newton

34
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. - George Washington Carver

35
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now and then, finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. - Isaac Newton

36
One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. - Sir Alexander Fleming

37
It seems safe to say that significan't discovery, really creative thinking, does not occur with regard to problems about which the thinker is lukewarm. - Mary Henle

38
There are types of energy which lie outside the electromagnetic spectrum. Unfortunately, these research efforts have not been given recognition. For the most part, they have been performed by individuals without any support, whose work lies at the threshold of present-day science, and who are years ahead of science which is already established. - Edgar D Mitchell, Ph.D

39
Modern physics views the vacuum of empty space not as a void but as a plenum of randomly fluctuating electromagnetic fields known as the zero-point energy(ZPE). - Harold Aspden

40
Recent ideas about magnetism show there may be a relationship bet ween magnetic and gyroscopic forces. This relationship may provide mankind with an important new source of efficient unlimited power that may solve our energy needs. - Brian Grindrod

41
We have to evolve means for obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever. I now feel sure that the realization of that idea is not far off. ...the possibilities of the development I refer to, namely, that of the operation of engines on any point of the earth by the energy of the medium. - Nikola Tesla

42
The magnet is a window to the free space energy of the Universe. - Bruce DePalma

43
The fuel industry wants to sell oil, gas, coal and uranium. Yet with reasonable research and development programs this country could develop far more abundant, cleaner and safer energy sources. - Ralph Nader

44
It is characteristic of fundamental discoveries, of great achievements of the intellect, that they retain an undiminished power upon the imagination of the thinker. The memorable experiment of Faraday with a disc rotating between two poles of a magnet, which has borne such magnificent fruit, has long passed into every-day experience; yet there are certain features about this embryo of the present dynamos and motors which even today appear to us striking, and are worthy of the most careful study. - Nikola Tesla

45
Various power groups know that if mankind has unlimited energy at its disposal, it becomes virtually impossible to control and manipulate people. With free energy a person is not subject to those who would control his transportation via fuel curtailment. One could live virtually anywhere since a readily available energy supply could be used to make any environment livable. Water could be taken from the air via condensation if necessary; and with water food could be grown. With unlimited energy available to a country, it could synthesise anything, including the atomic elements; therefore, that country is not open to international blackmail because of energy resource requirements. Stated in brief: ENERGY= FREEDOM. - Dan A Davidson

46
Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the world's machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other fuels. - Nikola Tesla

47
There is suppression launched against any free-energy inventor who succeeds or is very close to succeeding. - Thomas Bearden

 

48

There are secrets and mysteries surrounding magnets and collapsing field energies, and only after exhaustive studies of these two phenomena in practice, do these mysteries unravel themselves and emerge in their glory. - Robert Adams

49
There is a better way. Find it. - Edison

50
Ideas shape the course of history. - John Maynard Keynes

51
All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. - Grant wood

52
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. - John Maynard Keynes

53
Ideas discredited by powerful institutions are often driven underground to the realm of kookdom. - Donna Kossy

54
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are that good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. - Howard Aiken

55
By always thinking unto them. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open little by little into the full light. - Isaac Newton

56
Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein

57
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake

58
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. - Elbert Hubbard

59
Never tell a young person that something cannot be done. God may have waited for countless centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossibility to do the thing.

60
When the great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddle, incomplete, and confusing form . . . for any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope. - Freeman Dyson

61
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take a lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. - Nicolo Machivelli

62
The originator of a new concept...finds, as a rule, that it is much more difficult to find out why other people do not understand him, than it was to discover the new truth. - Hermann von Helmholtz

63
In a mythical land of the blind, the inhabitants regarded a man who claimed to be able to see, as suffering from delusions and being potentially dangerous.

64
The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar . . . Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have . . . always been derided as fools and madman. - Aldous Huxley

65
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. - Edison

66
Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true -- but it's father is creativity, and knowledge is the midwife. - Jonathan Schattke

67
Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion more interesting than the inventions themselves. - J. Koenderink

68
Every inventer is a crackpot untill his idea succeeds. - Mark Twain

69
10% inspiration. - 90% perspiration. - Edison

70
I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work. - Edison

71
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, life would not be worth living. - Jules Henri Poincaré

72
How can we have any new ideas or fresh outlooks when ninety per cent of all the scientists who have ever lived have not yet died? - Alan L Macay

73
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind. - Marston Bates

74
It would of course be a great step forward if we succeeded in combining the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field into a single structure. Only so could the era in theoretical physics inaugurated by Faraday and Clark Maxwel be brought to a satisfactory close. - Albert Einstein

75
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. - Albert Einstein