Arthur Eddington - Nature Quotes

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We are no longer tempted to condemn the spiritual aspects of our nature as illusory because of their lack of concreteness.

Arthur Eddington
It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control. It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.

Arthur Eddington
So far as broader characteristics are concerned we see in Nature what we look for or are equipped to look for.

Arthur Eddington
The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?

Arthur Eddington
I think there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way!

Arthur Eddington
I shall mix together results which may prove to be of scientific importance and results that are probably no more than mathematical curiosities. The plan is to set down anything that seems worthy of note, even though we cannot see that it has any ultimate importance in nature.

Arthur Eddington
Where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature.

Arthur Eddington
Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature's experiments; but that stirring of consciousness transmutes the whole story and gives meaning to its symbolism. Symbolically it is the end, but looking behind the symbolism it is the beginning.

Arthur Eddington