Science quotes

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.  - Johannes Kepler

I think nature's imagination is so much greater than Man's. She's never going to let us relax. - Richard Feynman

There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality. - Richard Dawkins

The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.  - T. H. Huxley

On our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history. What we do with our world right now will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well with our power to destroy our civilisation and perhaps our species as well.  If we capitulate to superstition, or greed or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilisation and the Italian Renaissance

But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the universe and to carry us to the stars. - Carl Sagan