Alan Gregg Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

Research has been defined as guerilla warfare on the unknown. In the rigorous uncertainties of such campaigns the investigator must be prepared to swap horses in mid-stream and to discard some very dear items of accumulated baggage of belief or personal pride, whenever intellectual honesty calls for such sacrifices.

Alan Gregg
Most of the knowledge and much of the genius of the research worker lie behind his selection of what is worth observing. It is a crucial choice, often determining the success or failure of months of work, often differentiating the brilliant discoverer from an otherwise admirable but entirely unproductive plodder.

Alan Gregg
A statistical resume of 1000 opinions about gravity before Newton's time would not have given us the law. You cannot always arrive at facts through other folks' opinions or observations.

Alan Gregg
Experiments are like cross-questioning a witness who will tell the truth but not the whole truth.

Alan Gregg
A dream is a firstborn: an hypothesis should be an orphan.

Alan Gregg
The true physician cannot remain outside the manifold of the events he observes.

Alan Gregg
The perpetual enemies of the human race, apart from man's own nature, are ignorance and disease.

Alan Gregg
Experiment as compared with mere observation has some of the characteristics of cross-examining nature rather than merely overhearing her.

Alan Gregg
One wonders whether the rare ability to be completely attentive to, and to profit by, nature's slightest deviation from the conduct expected of her is not the secret of the best research minds and one that explains why some men turn to most remarkably good advantage seemingly trivial accidents. Behind such attention lies an unremitting sensitivity.

Alan Gregg