83 Inspirational Quotes from Scientists That Will Ignite Your Curiosity

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

- Carl Sagan

"The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience."

- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

"What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance."

- David Eagleman

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

- Albert Einstein

"A glimpse of this wonder can be the reward of a lifetime."

- Chien-Shiung Wu

"Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity."

- Mae Jemison

"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."

- Stephen Hawking

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

- Arthur C. Clarke

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."

- Stephen Hawking

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

- Marie Curie

"The important thing is to never stop questioning [or learning]."

- Albert Einstein

"I am among those who think that science has great beauty."

- Marie Curie

"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought."

- Albert Szent-Györgyi

"Science is not only a disciple of reason but also one of romance and passion."

- Stephen Hawking

"All outstanding work, in art as well as in science, results from immense zeal applied to a great idea."

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

- Rita Levi-Montalcini

"If you want to have good ideas, you must have many ideas."

- Linus Pauling

"Science means constantly walking a tightrope between blind faith and curiosity; between expertise and creativity; between bias and openness; between experience and epiphany; between ambition and passion; and between arrogance and conviction –in short, between and old today and a new tomorrow."

- Henrich Rohrer

"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world."

- Louis Pasteur

"We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used to create them."

- Albert Einstein

"Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity."

- Lise Meitner

"There are mysteries that we're still trying to investigate through the gift of science."

- Jennifer Wiseman

"Chance only favors the prepared mind."

- Louis Pasteur

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

- Isaac Newton

"To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

- Nicolaus Copernicus

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."

- Louis Pasteur

"To do successful research, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know one thing that isn't known."

- Arthur L. Schawlow

"Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible."

- George Washington Carver

"The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

- Eden Phillpotts

"Research is creating new knowledge."

- Neil Armstrong

"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"But science has given us new eyes that allow us to see down to the deeper roots of the world's structure, and there all we see is order and symmetry of pristine mathematical purity."

- Stephen M. Barr

"Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions."

- Vera Rubin

"If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence."

- John O'Keefe

"Every brilliant experiment, like every great work of art, starts with an act of imagination."

- Jonah Lehrer

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

- Isaac Asimov

"One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away."

- Stephen Hawking

"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field."

- Niels Bohr

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

- Carl Sagan

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool."

- Richard Feynman

"Our bodies actually depend on other stars."

- Jennifer Wiseman

"The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment."

- Sally Gronow

"Innovation is the key to the future, but basic research is the key to future innovation."

- Jerome Isaac Friedman

"It is not easy to be a pioneer – but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world."

- Elizabeth Blackwell

"Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind."

- Marston Bates

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement."

- Marie Curie

"If you don't do the best with what you have, you could never have done better with what you could have had."

- Ernest Rutherford

"When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

- George Washington Carver

"Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth."

- Sir Isaac Newton

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the universe."

- Albert Einstein

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

"If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off... no matter what they say."

- Barbara McClintock

"When kids look up to great scientists the way they do musicians, actors [and sports figures], civilization will jump to the next level."

- Brian Greene

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

- Albert Einstein

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

- Carl Sagan

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

- Aristotle

"Life cannot have had a random beginning."

- Fred Hoyle

"I find it quite improbably that such order came out of chaos."

- Allan Sandage

"If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research."

- Albert Einstein

"By seeking and blundering we learn."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries."

- Marie Curie

"Why do we do basic research? To learn about ourselves."

- Walter Gilbert

"What we find changes who we become."

- Peter Morville

"Play is the highest form of research."

- Albert Einstein

"Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It's time to start thinking."

- Ernest Rutherford

"Our virtues and our failures are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more."

- Nikola Tesla

"Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated."

- Rosalind Franklin

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

- Carl Sagan

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful."

- George Box

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts."

- Bill Gates

"Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and its cousin, depression."

- Robert Moog

"Research is the highest form of adoration."

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them."

- Nicolaus Copernicus

"In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs."

- William Osler

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."

- George Washington Carver

"A known enemy is already half disarmed."

- Louis Pasteur

"Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things."

- Robert A. Heinlein

"Never memorize something that you can look up."

- Albert Einstein

"Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done."

- Robert A. Heinlein

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

- Albert Einstein

"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"

- Albert Einstein