Bill Clinton Quotes

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.

Back in my days as a chemistry student, I used to be quite a technocrat. I was firmly convinced that scientists would have cornered God and photographed Him in color by 1951.

The knowledge and understanding of the world which science gives us and the magnificent opportunity which it extends to us to control and use the world for the extension of our pleasure in it has never been greater than it now is.

It is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute.

The ... progress of improvement and discovery ought not to be overlooked. ... Philosophy already directs her finger at sources of inexhaustible power. ... We are on the eve of mechanical discoveries still greater than any which have yet appeared.

So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?

If we choose to ignore science and refuse to fund important scientific research, we voluntarily cede our place as a world leader in innovation.

We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.

There really is only one story that you need to tell as a scientist or a technologist. It's Prometheus stealing fire. That's it. That's what we do as scientists or technologists.

Many of the technologies we've invented are necessary to keep 6.5 billion people alive. We can't go back from that, so we need to decarbonize really rapidly.

We foresee no limit to scientific advancement in the future, and in scientific truth there is nothing dead; science is always a living and growing body of knowledge; but art on the contrary has many times run its course to an end, and exhausted its vital power.

In consequence, science is more important than ever for industrial technology.

we need to work harder if we're going to continue what Carl Sagan saw as a new Renaissance of discovery. One way is by explaining to the Congress and the public why it is in our national interest to get this work funded. We can win this – and do what is right by the American people – if we can get the public to understand what's at stake.

There are lots of things that science will enable us to do that we shouldn’t do.

The emergence of modern science as a major new frontier of advancement that would lead, on one hand, to the discovery of new secrets of the universe, the invention of means to harness those secrets and the powers they represented, and the means to improve human health and allow humans to survive to both undertake that work and to enjoy its fruits.

When I contemplate the immense advances in sciences and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches

The republic has no need of scientists

I consider myself fundamentally more of an environmentalist than many of the environmental groups. We have to come up with new sources of food, new sources of water, new sources of energy. Trying to ignore leading-edge science and technology as a means of getting there is an ostrich approach of burying your head in the sand.

Those of us concerned with developing new technology should consider ourselves to have a major undertaking to try to meet the expanding needs of the increasing number of people in the world with its finite resources and environments constraints.

There are those who say that such research should be stopped by law, alleging that man’s destructive powers are already large enough. So no doubt that the more elderly and ape-like of our prehistoric ancestors objected to the innovation of cooked food and pointed out the grave danger of the use of the newly discovered agency, fire.

In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

The United States needs to be a leader in scientific research.

We, as a country, have always used innovative technology to advance environmental stewardship, reduction of those pollutants, but also grown our economy at the same time.

The spending in science and technology need to be to increased.

I think there's a certain paranoia about science because there is a certain risk related to science which people are very wary about, and therefore, there is an inherent risk aversion to science and technology or, at least, science and technology of unknown.