Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow Quotes

One can not impede scientific progress.

There's no question that as science, knowledge and technology advance, that we will attempt to do more significant things. And there's no question that we will always have to temper those things with ethics.

To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.

If a more general prosperity permits a greater number of individuals to pursue studies, since at present, in the most enlightened countries, hardly a fiftieth part of those men to whom nature has given talent receive the education necessary to make use of their talents; and that, therefore, the number of men destined to push back the frontiers of the sciences by their discoveries will grow in the same proportion [as universal education increases].

It is the great beauty of our science, chemistry, that advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead of exhausting the subjects of research, opens the doors to further and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and utility.

There is no knowledge and science like pondering and thought; and there is no prosperity and advancement like knowledge and science.

Science is the only savior.

One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

Who brings tomorrow into the present if not the scientists, technicians and engineers?

The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man.

... science is the most revolutionary force in the world.

The sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents.

Scientists are the true driving force of civilization.

Thus with every advance in our scientific knowledge new elements come up, often forcing us to recast our entire picture of physical reality. No doubt, theorists would much prefer to perfect and amend their theories rather than be obliged to scrap them continually. But this obligation is the condition and price of all scientific progress.

It is men of science who hold the secret of the mysterious property of the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but irrevocably prevails. Theirs is the logic of discovery, the demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in history.

The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research.

In medicine, or in science, you go down a path and it turns out to be a dead end, you really made a contribution, because we know we don’t have to go down that path again. In the press, they call it failure. And so people are unwilling to innovate, unwilling to take risks in government …

I am among those who think that science has great beauty.

I believe that the future of humanity is in the progress of reason through science. I believe that the pursuit of truth, through science, is the divine ideal which man should propose to himself.

The more people are exposed to science, the more we will move away from superstition.

Only by ignorance is science threatened.

We should not be a party that is opposed to science.

But probably every age gets, within certain limits, the science it deserves.

Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science