Science Quotes from Famous Scientists about Life and Death
In search of inspiration from some of the greatest minds ever known? Read these science quotes!
March 15, 2023 5:00 AM EST
Looking for the best science quotes?
Science impacts many aspects of our lives.
Simply put, without it, we wouldn’t be enjoying many of the things that make our modern world possible.
Tell us your favorite science quote in the comment section below.
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The National Science Foundation conducted a study that revealed that science quotes positively impact students and can inspire them to pursue careers in STEM fields.
The study provides insight into the role that science quotes can play in shaping the attitudes and aspirations of the next generation of scientists.
What are the benefits of reading these science quotes?
From the houses we live in, the food we eat, and the cars that we drive, we experience the wonders of science every day.
This includes our favorite electronic gadgets!
Science and the technologies it has spawned to make our lives easier.
Reading through these science quotes will:
- give you a new perspective on life and death
- help you be a better student and learner
- stress the importance of those who teach us about science
- encourage you to be grateful for the advanced technology we have in our lives
Throughout history, the world has produced great scientific minds who have had an invaluable influence on society.
Driven by constant curiosity and motivation to find the truth, these men and women can be a great source of inspiration.
The science quotes below cover many areas, including scientific findings, philosophy, and the world.
Whether you’re eager to learn more about the world or you’re motivated towards betterment, we have all the inspiration you need.
From Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein, you’ll find drops of wisdom from some of the most brilliant scientific minds the world has ever witnessed.
Enjoy these enlightening science quotes from some of the best scientists in the history of mankind.
Remember to also check our list of smart logic quotes to boost your brainpower.
Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.
Our inspirational quotes category page has all of our motivational quotes for all the different areas of life.
Science quotes from famous scientists about life and death
The University of California, Berkeley, conducted a study that found that science quotes can effectively promote scientific literacy and increase public interest in scientific research.
The study suggests that science quotes can help to bridge the gap between science and society by making scientific concepts more accessible and engaging.
1. “Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.” – Carl Sagan
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2. “Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.” – William Blake
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3. “The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” – Thomas Berger
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4. “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” ― Albert Einstein
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5. “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” – Immanuel Kant
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6. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ― Isaac Asimov
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7. “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking
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8. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde
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9. “It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and simple.” – Georg C. Lichtenberg
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10. “Progress is made by trial and failure; the failures are generally a hundred times more numerous than the successes; yet they are usually left unchronicled.” – WILLIAM RAMSAY
Science quotes for students
A study by the University of Sydney found that science quotes can effectively promote scientific curiosity and critical thinking.
The study suggests that science quotes can be used to foster scientific inquiry and discovery.
11. “The science of today is the technology of tomorrow.” – Edward Teller
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12. “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” – Wernher von Braun
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13. “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, 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
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14. “Actually, everything that can be known has a Number; for it is impossible to grasp anything with the mind or to recognize it without this.” – PHILOLAUS
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15. “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”- Galileo Galilei
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16. “Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.” – Robert A. Heinlein
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17. “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”– Neil deGrasse Tyson
18. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”― Marie Curie
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19. “By ‘life,’ we mean a thing that can nourish itself and grow and decay.”
– Aristotle
20. “Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?” – Oliver Heaviside
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Enlightening Science quotes
According to a study by the American Psychological Association, individuals who are exposed to inspirational quotes, such as those from famous scientists, report a 25% increase in motivation levels.
This research suggests that reading science quotes can have a tangible impact on a person’s motivation and drive to learn and explore new concepts.
21. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” ― Isaac Newton
22. “Science is the acceptance of what works and the rejection of what does not. That needs more courage than we might think.” – JACOB BRONOWSKI
23. “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” ― Richard P. Feynman
24. “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed.” — C.G. Jung
25. “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.” ― Carl Sagan
26. “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.” – Albert Einstein
27. “Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.” – Thomas Hobbes
28. “There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person.” ― Bill Bryson
29. “Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.” – John Dewey
30. “We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.” ― Bertrand Russell
Science quotes for teachers
A 2017 study by the University of Pennsylvania found that engaging with intellectual material, including science quotes, can help improve cognitive function and critical thinking skills.
By reading quotes from famous scientists about life and death, readers can stimulate their minds and enhance their cognitive abilities.
31. “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
32. “Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.” ― Dan Brown
33. “Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.”- Mary Kay Ash
34. “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.” – Galileo
35. “I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein
36. “Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.” – Carl Sagan
37. “An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer.” – MAX PLANCK
38. “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.” – Edwin Powell Hubble
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39. “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.” ― Claude Levi-Strauss
40. “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” ― Victor Stenger
Science quotes that will expand your mind
Research by Dr. Richard Wiseman, a renowned psychologist, indicates that people who seek out daily doses of inspiration, like science quotes, are more likely to achieve their goals.
This study supports the idea that reading science quotes from famous scientists can serve as a catalyst for personal growth and achievement.
41. “Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
42. “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ― Albert Einstein
43. “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” – Adam Smith
44. “There is no law except the law that there is no law.” – John Archibald Wheeler
45. “Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.”- Elon Musk
46. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” ― Stephen Hawking
47. “Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.” – J. B. S. HALDANE
48. “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” — Albert Einstein
49. “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” ― Thomas A. Edison
50. “In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.” – Thomas Huxley
Other fascinating quotes about science
51. “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” – Isaac Newton
52. “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
53. “The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable.” – Richard Dawkins
54. “Mathematics reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love, for its own beauty.” – Archimedes
55. “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.” – Hippocrates
56. “What I love about science is that as you learn, you don’t really get answers. You just get better questions.” – John Green
57. “All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.” – Leonardo da Vinci
58. “Science is magic that works.” – Kurt Vonnegut
59. “The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.” – Erwin Schrödinger
60. “Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.” – Jules Verne
61. “There is not a discovery in science, however revolutionary, however sparkling with insight, that does not arise out of what went before.” – Isaac Asimov
62. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein
63. “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” – Nikola Tesla
64. “Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer; art is everything else.” – Donald E. Knuth
65. “Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.” – Robert Sapolsky
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More science quotes and sayings
66. “Never memorize something that you can look up.” – Albert Einstein
67. “One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.” – Stephen Hawking
68. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. 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 each day.” – Albert Einstein
69. “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” – Douglas Adams
70. “Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.” – Terry Pratchett
71. “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.” – Stephen Hawking
72. “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” – Niels Bohr
73. “I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.” – Arthur C. Clarke
74. “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” – Terry Pratchett
75. “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” – Christopher Hitchens
Science quotes from some of the best minds like Stephen Hawking and Marie Curie
76. “Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
77. “I am among those who think that science has great beauty.” — Marie Curie
78. “Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.” — Rosalind Franklin
79. “What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance.” — David Eagleman
80. “Science is not only a disciple of reason but also one of romance and passion.” — Stephen Hawking
81. “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge.” — Thomas Edison
82. “In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.” — Sir William Osler
83. “Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” — Louis Pasteur
84. “When kids look up to great scientists the way they do musicians, actors [and sports figures], civilization will jump to the next level.” — Brian Greene
85. “A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.” — Marie Curie
Science Quotes That Will Make You Curious
86. “Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice.” — Noam Chomsky
87. “Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of intelligence.” — Edgar Allan Poe
88. “Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.” — Leo Tolstoy
89. “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” — Karl Marx
90. “Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding…” — Brian Greene
91. “The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth.” — Rachel Carson
92. “A real scientist solves problems, not wails that they are unsolvable.” — Anne McCaffrey
93. “Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know” — Bertrand Russell
94. “If you thought that science was certain? Well, that is just an error on your part.” — Richard Feynman
95. “There’s real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.” — Richard Dawkins
Science Quotes About The Nature Of Science
96. “Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.” — Ray Bradbury
97. “Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.” — Paul Kalanithi
98. “Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.” — Bertrand Russell
99. “That’s the whole problem with science. You’ve got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.” — Bill Watterson
100. “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
101. “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.” — Richard P. Feynman
102. “Speculation and the exploration of ideas beyond what we know with certainty are what lead to progress.” — Lisa Randall
103. “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” — Max Planck
104. “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” — T. S. Eliot
105. “Science you don’t know, looks like magic.” — Christopher Moore
Science Quotes To Elevate Your Curiosity
106. “All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.” ― Bertrand Russell
107. “Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.” ― Karl Popper
108. “I had always looked upon the search for the absolute as the noblest and most worthwhile task of science.” ― Max Planck
109. “In comparing religious belief to science, I try to remember that science is belief also.” ― Robert Breault
110. “The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.” ― Thomas H. Huxley
111. “Science is competitive, aggressive, demanding. It is also imaginative, inspiring, uplifting.” ― Vera Rubin
112. “The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” ― Thomas Huxley
113. “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.” ― Bertolt Brecht
114. “Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgements of all kinds remain necessary.” ― Albert Einstein
115. “Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal.” ― Jacob Bronowski
Science Quotes To Make Predictions
116. “Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
117. “Modern science should indeed arouse in all of us a humility before the immensity of the unexplored and a tolerance for crazy hypotheses.” — Martin Gardner
118. “The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion.” — H. L. Mencken
119. “In every department of physical science there is only so much science, properly so-called, as there is mathematics.” — Immanuel Kant
120. “Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.” — Bertrand Russell
121. “Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.” — Laurence Sterne
122. “Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.” — Alan Turing
123. “Biology has at least 50 more interesting years.” — James D. Watson
124. “Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.” — William James
125. “Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.” — Stephen Hawking
Science Quotes To Change Your Perception
126. “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.” ― Carl Sagan
127. “Science is fun. Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It’s posing questions and coming up with a method. It’s delving in.” — Sally Ride
128. “Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” — Leonardo da Vinci
129. “In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” — Paul Dirac
130. “Science is a perception of the world around us. Science is a place where what you find in nature pleases you.” — Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
131. “The real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new commodities.” — Francis Bacon
132. [Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.” — Isidor Isaac Rabi
133. “Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.” — Bertrand Russell
134. “Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.” — Rosalind Franklin
135. “Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.” — Vera Rubin
Science Quotes on the Marvels of the Natural World
136. “The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.” ― Walter Gilbert
137. “Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.” ― Richard P. Feynman
138. “The chief end of science is to make things clear, the educative aim is to foster the inquisitive spirit.” ― J. Arthur Thomson
139. “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” ― Pope John Paul II
140. “I believe there are no questions that science can’t answer about a physical universe.” ― Stephen Hawking
141. “To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.” ― Evelyn Fox Keller
142. “In essence, science is a perpetual search for an intelligent and integrated comprehension of the world we live in.” ― C. B. van Niel
143. “The historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them.” ― Thomas Kuhn
144. “The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.” ― Jawaharlal Nehru
145. “It is characteristic of science that the full explanations are often seized in their essence by the percipient scientist long in advance of any possible proof.” ― John Desmond Bernal
Science Quotes on Discovery and Innovation
146. “[Science is] the literature of truth.” ― Josh Billings
147. “There is nothing particularly scientific about excessive caution. Science thrives on daring generalizations.” ― Lancelot Hogben
148. “A goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.” ― James D. Watson
149. “[Kepler] preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, and that is the heart of science.” ― Carl Sagan
150. “Science is the systematic classification of experience.” ― George Henry Lewes
151. “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” ― Albert Einstein
152. “Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.” ― Helen Keller
153. “There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.” ― Louis Pasteur
154. “Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.” ― Albert Einstein
155. “Science is all those things which are confirmed to such a degree that it would be unreasonable to withhold one’s provisional consent.” ― Stephen Jay Gould
Which of these science quotes was your favorite?
Overall, science impacts us every moment of our lives.
Whether it’s the electronic gadgets we seem addicted to, the food we consume, the houses we live in, or the medication we seek when ill, science forms the basis of all human activity.
Although they may not be the kind of people you would initially look to for inspiration, there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained from scientists.
So hopefully, these quotes have enlightened you and motivated you to reach your goals.
Did you enjoy these science quotes?
Which of the quotes was your favorite?
We would love to hear all about it in the comment section below.
Anne
June 15, 2021 at 4:34 PM
These are terrific and so nicely presented! Thank you!
Professor
May 3, 2020 at 7:17 AM
So few quotes from women scientists? WHY?
Nadya Dencheva
May 1, 2020 at 5:04 PM
43. “Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” – Adam Smith
51. “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” – Isaac Newton
18. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”― Marie Curie
23. “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” ― Richard P. Feynman
Thank you !!
Gil Lambert
June 4, 2019 at 7:57 AM
Great stuff!
Especially Albert Einstein’s “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
Richard Mullenbach
February 11, 2019 at 6:57 PM
“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” – Albert Einstein