Gregory Benford Quotes

As you know, in most areas of science, there are long periods of beginning before we really make progress.

A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet.

A scientist should be the happiest of men. Not that science isn't serious; but as everyone knows, being serious is one way of being happy, just as being gay is one way of being unhappy.

I think people love fundamental science.

Whenever I think of how much pleasure I have interviewing scientists, I remember that they're having the real fun in actually being able to do the science.

I am only a physicist with nothing material to show for my labours. I have never even seen the ionosphere, although I have worked on the subject for thirty years. That does show how lucky people can be. If there had been no ionosphere I would not have been standing here this morning.

The science hangs like a gathering fog in a valley, a fog which begins nowhere and goes nowhere, an incidental, unmeaning inconvenience to passers-by.

Most man only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

Those who draw their sustenance from science are blessed. It is for me to only derive an occasional pleasure. This is nothing worthy of conceit, but I am indeed touched by the joys. This book is an ode to such joys, a digest of my collections from various sources.

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error.

It is my earnest desire that some of you should carry on this scientific work and keep for your ambition the determination to make a permanent contribution to science.

I think that the issues we have with science these days are not restricted to what's happening with respect to religion. There are a lot of very religious scientists around.

The increase of scientific knowledge lies not only in the occasional milestones of science, but in the efforts of the very large body of men who with love and devotion observe and study nature.

Science is a wonderful discipline, to which we are deeply indebted.

I can't ever remember not wanting to be a scientist.

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

I fell in love with science and decided to continue for my Ph.D., and from there on, I was a scientist.

Happy indeed is the scientist who not only has the pleasures which I have enumerated, but who also wins the recognition of fellow scientists and of the mankind which ultimately benefits from his endeavors.

I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.

Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do.

I very much enjoyed my career in science. I didn't leave science because I was disillusioned, but felt I'd done my bit for it after about twenty-five years.

But now I've got a young son and his interest is in science and now when I talk to him, I see that in the science sphere of our lives there is new, there is progress.

There is nothing inherently wrong about science.

I think that we scientists are seeking an understanding of the natural world. We come in various types - chemists and physicists and biologists and such - and we all have the same goal. We are making progress.

I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science.