Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet Quotes

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Scientific truth is not won by prayer and fasting, but by patient observation and persistent inquiry.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The discovery of a law of Nature is always of great advantage to scientific progress. By the warp and woof of experiment, the man of science weaves a pattern from the threads of evidence, and presents the result to the world for anyone to improve.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The less a man knows, the more content he is with his intellectual capacity and outlook: it requires a great man to realise the imperfections of his knowledge.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Mystery is... not destroyed by knowledge but removed to a higher plane.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
An accurate observation remains unaltered throughout the ages. Its scientific value is determined by its truth to Nature; and the more complete the testimony, the less room is there for elaboration by investigators in succeeding generations.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Most men of science are neither suppliants at the feet of Nature nor fiery advocates of truths wrested from her, but by critical inquiry into the origin of her strength and weakness they hope to discover the means of subduing her.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Nature, like the rich man of the parable, requires importunate pleading before she will bestow any of her riches upon a suppliant at her temple.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Facts which seem trivial in themselves may be rich in suggestion to the thoughtful mind.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Nature must be loved for herself and not for her dowry.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The gospel of work is the gospel of science. Go into the fields of Nature and labour if you would become a disciple of science; for not otherwise can the kingdom of natural knowledge be gained.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The man of science, by virtue of his training, is alone capable of realising the difficulties — often enormous — of obtaining accurate data upon which just judgment may be based.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Direct contact with Nature and inquiry into her laws produce a habit of mind which cannot be acquired in literary fields, and they are associated with a wide outlook on life more often than is usually supposed.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The grand, and indeed only, character of truth is its capability of enduring the test of human experience, and coming unchanged out of every possible form of fair discussion.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
No amount of learning from books or of listening to the words of authority can be substituted for the spade-work of investigation.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
It is necessary to believe in the holiness of scientific work in order to preserve to the end; for without the encouragement which such belief gives, many investigators would fall by the wayside.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Science advances by opening completely new fields of knowledge upon which the literary man or investigator may exercise their intellectual activities, and the directions in which these domains are to be found are rarely indicated with success in romantic or in scientific literature.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The study of Nature is elevating, and its material value is of the highest, yet it is deplorably neglected with the result that only very rarely is the simplest scientific subject referred to accurately in the works of literary men.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The love of truth is the beginning and end of wisdom.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
In the world of natural knowledge, no authority is great enough to support a theory when a crucial observation has shown it to be untenable.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The scientific man has to work for truth so far as her ways can be comprehended by him, but he is never more than a trustee for posterity, and has no authority to define the functions or limit the freedom of those who follow him.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The port of science - whether pure or applied - is free, and a modest yawl can find a berth in it as readily as a splendid merchantman, provided that it has a cargo to discharge.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Success in science means the birth of new knowledge.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
[Nature] is a Katharine to be tamed by the Petruchil of Science rather than a Juliet to be worshiped by a lovesick Romeo.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
A truthful mind is necessary for the discovery of truth in Nature.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
I hope that my children, at least, if not I myself, will see the day, when ignorance of the primary laws and facts of science will be looked on as a defect, only second to ignorance of the primary laws of religion and morality.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
Explorers on the ship of science go out to discover new lands; and their spirit is not the same as that which actuates the prospectors who follow them with the intention of making the lands profitable to themselves and others.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
The hypothesis which represents an effort of imaginative power not founded upon a wide range of facts may pass as fiction, but it has no place in science.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
When science permits itself to be controlled by the spirit of profitable application it becomes merely the galley-slave of short-sighted commerce.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
To the man of science discoveries signify extensions of the field of work, and he usually leaves their exploitation to prospectors who follow him.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet
There is a common impression that the conclusions arrived at by men of science are of the nature of beliefs, and have, therefore, no firmer basis than that of conviction. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet