John Arthur Thomson Quotes

76 Sourced Quotes

From the physicist's point of view, the living organism resembles, as we have already said, some wonderful kind of engine.

John Arthur Thomson
The first step in beginning the scientific study of a problem is to collect the data, which are or ought to be "facts."

John Arthur Thomson
The raw material of observation is not rare like gold or diamonds, but near to us as sunshine and rain-drops.

John Arthur Thomson
As we begin to feel at home in Nature, our wonder grows into delight and what may almost be called affection. This is true of those who have what Meredith called "love exceeding a simple love of the things that glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck."

John Arthur Thomson
Too great specialization leads to pedantry; too little of it to superficiality.

John Arthur Thomson
It is certain, though rarely realized, that Science has precious gifts to place in the hands of Art that she may fashion them magically into beauty.

John Arthur Thomson
The simple and open mind is always impressed by the bigness of Nature.

John Arthur Thomson
The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.

John Arthur Thomson
When we pass from ordinary sight to scientific vision, how subtle and ethereal matter becomes! What pictures modern physics gives us of a restless activity suggestive of life!

John Arthur Thomson
Obeying the living hand of the past which is within them.

John Arthur Thomson
Science is a kind of knowledge which gives descriptions and laws reached by observation and experiment. It is not the only kind of knowledge, it is not the only pathway towards truth - but it is indispensable.

John Arthur Thomson
Science expresses a quite specific endeavor to get phenomena under intellectual control, so that we can think of them economically and clearly in relation to the rest of our science, and so that we can use them as a basis for secure prediction and effective action.

John Arthur Thomson
The vital striving and struggling characteristic of the realm of organisms is something apart from and finer than even the music of the spheres.

John Arthur Thomson
Although science is not in itself practical, anymore than artistic or emotional, there is a practical note in its ideal. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is not a humanly satisfying motive, though the idea often fills the horizon for an hour, or a day, a year, or a life-time, according to the nature of the man.

John Arthur Thomson
What science knows it must know definitely; what it sees must be in focus.

John Arthur Thomson
Science has enormous treasure-caves full of what we cannot but describe as the raw materials of poetry.

John Arthur Thomson