John Arthur Thomson Quotes

76 Sourced Quotes

Science is always setting forth on Columbus voyages, discovering new worlds and conquering them by understanding.

John Arthur Thomson
If we are to reach a coherent view of Nature, such as could be included in a philosophy, we must arrive at some discernment of the characteristics which mark off living organisms from their not-living surroundings. In the present state of science a definition of the organism cannot be more than tentative, but it must be continually attempted.

John Arthur Thomson
The definitizing of error is often the beginning of its disappearance. When the evil genie of the Eastern tales took on definite bodily form there was some chance of tackling him; as a mere wraith he was unassailable.

John Arthur Thomson
The living body is the theatre of many chemical and physical operations in a line with those of the inorganic domain.

John Arthur Thomson
Complex as are the inborn variations of plants and animals, they can be treated by the same statistical methods as are used in recording the simple phenomena observed when dice are thrown ten thousand times.

John Arthur Thomson
Science gives Man from time to time a greatly increased mastery over Nature; science, with its analytical triumphs, ever tends to diminish, in the shallowminded, the saving grace of wonder; and science is ever dispelling the darkness that oppresses the mind.

John Arthur Thomson
Science as science never asks the question Why? That is to say, it never inquires into the meaning, or significance, or purpose of this manifold Being, Becoming, and Having Been.... Thus science does not pretend to be a bedrock of truth.

John Arthur Thomson
Vast as is the Solar System, then, it is excessively minute in comparison with the Stellar System, the universe of the Stars, which is on a scale far transcending anything the human mind can apprehend.

John Arthur Thomson
There is grandeur in the spectacle of the star-strewn sky, so apparently crowded, but there are thousands of worlds unseen for every one our unaided eyes can image, and yet the astronomers tell us that the emptiness of space is its most striking characteristic.

John Arthur Thomson
Science aims at description in terms of the lowest common denominators available; while religion and philosophy aim at interpretation in terms of the greatest common measure.

John Arthur Thomson
We must bear in mind the fact that millions of years are spent in the fashioning of minutia of perfection in types which are certainly not near the highway of evolution that led to backboned animals and eventually to man. Nothing is too remote, too minute, too trivial — everything must be finished and refined.

John Arthur Thomson
Science is not wrapped up with any particular body of facts; it is characterized as an intellectual attitude. It is not tied down to any peculiar methods of inquiry; it is simply sincere critical thought, which admits conclusions only when these are based on evidence.

John Arthur Thomson
The opposition between science and feeling is largely a misunderstanding. As one of our philosophers has remarked, Science is in a true sense "one of the humanities."

John Arthur Thomson
These are the three voices of Nature. She joins hands with us; and says Struggle, Endeavor. She comes close to us, we hear her heart beating; she says Wonder, Enjoy, Revere. She whispers secrets to us, we cannot always catch her words; she says Search, Enquire. These three voices appeal to Hand and Heart and Head, to the trinity of our being.

John Arthur Thomson
The scientific mood is especially marked by a passion for facts, by cautiousness of statement, by clearness of vision, and by a sense of the inter-relatedness of things.

John Arthur Thomson
To see things and happenings clearly, both in themselves and in their relations to other things and happenings, is the aim of science. And no one who enjoys scientific work - whether at the humble level of accurate description, or at the high level of discovering a formula - cares to hear much about the "utility of science."

John Arthur Thomson
To be wholly practical is to grub for edible roots and see no flowers upon the earth, no stars overhead.

John Arthur Thomson
From age to age science has given mankind a new world, and the latest newness - which will not be the last - is perhaps the strangest of all.

John Arthur Thomson
Science is a particular way of looking at the world, but it is not the only way.

John Arthur Thomson
The Evolution-idea is a master-key that opens many doors. It is a luminous interpretation of the world, throwing the light of the past upon the present.

John Arthur Thomson
Chemistry is mainly the science of the different kinds of matter, their transformations, affinities, and interactions. It is par excellence the science of molecules and atoms.

John Arthur Thomson
Every creature is a bundle of adaptations. Indeed, as Weismann says of the whale, "When we take away the adaptations, what have we left?"

John Arthur Thomson
When our aim is to get a grip of scientific method, we are more likely to succeed by settling down to the thorough study of some one order of facts, than by indulging in an intellectual ramble through the universe.

John Arthur Thomson
Nowadays, except in the outskirts of civilisation, there are few wild beasts that worry man much, the serpent that bites his heel is usually more or less microscopic.

John Arthur Thomson
Questions that the biologist must ask and answer before he can go far in generalization appear at first sight to be very numerous and varied, but, from a certain distance, we see that there are only four: What is this living creature as regards form and structure? How does it work? Whence has it arisen? How has it come to be as it is?

John Arthur Thomson
As among plants and animals, so among lifeless things there is extraordinary heterogeneity. There are over eighty different kinds of elements; the number of different minerals is legion; the multitude of the stars is untold.

John Arthur Thomson
The world is like a change-office, without increase or decrease in its initial stock. We always stand in the middle of an equation, past equalling future. It is for the biologist to correct this partial view, for to him the possible that grows out of the past is new and in some measure unpredictable.

John Arthur Thomson
The past lives on in the present, that is what is meant by heredity.

John Arthur Thomson
The eyes of the investigator have neither laughter nor tears. In the actual work of science, emotion is dangerous.

John Arthur Thomson
The Doctrine of Evolution states the fact that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future.

John Arthur Thomson