Philip Pullman Quotes

The scientist is a lover of truth for the very love of truth itself, wherever it may lead.

I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it.

Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honor, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.

The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.

There are many examples of old, incorrect theories that stubbornly persisted, sustained only by the prestige of foolish but well-connected scientists... Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment exposed their incorrectness... Thus the yeoman work in any science, and especially physics, is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.

Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth.

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.

As scientists, we need to not be afraid of the truth.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.

Truth is always served by great minds, even if they fight it.

Expressing truth is hard work.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

I've tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.

We receive the truths of science by compulsion. Nothing but ignorance is able to resist them.

Science has changed the face of this earth: it has harnessed the forces of Nature -- forces whose secret laws it had first to discover -- it has created practically a new world within the memory of men living….Science -- the scientists -- doesn't pretend to have grasped in its fingers the Eternal Truth …Science doesn't demand that one believe or be damned. Science reasons. Science investigates. Science tests itself….Science works -- builds -- quietly prevails -- promises little and performs much.

But whereas skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, confidence and certainty are the coin of the realm in much of today’s public discourse. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency we trade in, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline.

Although she was not a politician, my grandmother gave me the most important lesson I've ever received and one I carry with me today. That all you need to be successful in life is three things: your wishbone to dream big, your jawbone to speak the truth, and your backbone to persevere through it all.

I chose to pursue a career in physics because there the truth isn't so easily bent.

I'm on the pro-science side of the Republican Party.

Science has promised us truth...It has never promised us either peace or happiness.