Scientific Curiosity Quotes

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

Good science is done by being curious in general, by asking questions all around, by acknowledging the likelihood of being wrong and taking this in good humor for granted, by having a deep fondness for nature, and by being made jumpy and nervous by ignorance.

No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.

Scientists must venture outside their comfort zones to show the public how cool - and how important - their work really is.

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.

Science is really about describing the way the universe works in one aspect or another in all branches of science—how a life-form works, how this works, how that works. ... You have to have a natural curiosity for that.

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's...the same fraction...of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War.

My father was a scientist, and I grew up in his laboratory. Maybe I am like him, but he is not like me.

My mom was a high school science teacher for decades. She just never made it feel like we had to choose between the arts and the sciences. We had bookshelves full of novels, and she also had Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold and Carl Sagan.

None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science.

One might almost say that the history of geographical discovery, properly so called, begins with Captain Cook, the motive of whose voyages was purely scientific curiosity.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

But when you come right down to it the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values.

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes.

I think becoming a scientist is the product of parents who gave me enormous opportunities to master nature.

I love watching programs about Discovery Channel and just reading New Scientist, and all that kind of stuff. Im just fascinated by it.

In matters of science, curiosity gratified begets not indolence, but new desires.

Over the last 25 years, since a lot of science writing became accessible to layman, I've become quite a consumer of science. As a child, I wasn't streamed into science, and I regret that now.

I spend a lot of my time on the phone, pestering people. 'What's new in your lab? Can I come visit your lab? When can I come visit your lab?' I'm basically a professional pesterer.

Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.

I was a normal human being, but I did like that. I read a lot. I also liked math and science.

I was interested in science before I even knew what science was.

For the scientists, they're kind of puzzled and pleased that somebody finds their work interesting. It makes it fun for me. I feel like I've sort of turned over a stone that hasn't been turned over.

I am trying to write stuff that is different. I am a big science fan. I read a lot of science, and 'Wonderland' has a lot of science in it. I don't know. They are hard to describe... We are living in a wonderland age of science.

What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.