Scientific Quotations
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11-Nov-2009
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Ever have the urge to put a little literary flair into your writings by throwing in a relevant quotation or two from a famous person? Quotation websites have sprung up all over the Internet. Few, if any, provide the actual source of the quote. Unfortunately, many people are quick to quote but rarely give full citations as to "where" the actual quote was first said, written, or mentioned - or the context or situation in which the quote arose. In many cases, the context of the quote can change the meaning entirely from how it has become used in modern day.
For example:
Isaac Newton is popularly attributed with saying "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Many people even note that it came from a letter he wrote to Robert Hooke on February 5, 1676; however, did you know he was not the first to say it? His words were reflecting the earlier writings of Bernard of Chartres in the 12th century.
Another popular quote: "...the great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact..." is regularly attributed to Thomas H. Huxley, but rarely does anyone seem to know where the quote originated. It came from "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" (Huxley's presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1870) as published in Discourses Biological and Geological, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898, pages 229-271. The above quote appears on page 244. He was "tracing the path which has been followed by a scientific idea [biogenesis] in its long and slow progress from the position of a probable hypothesis to that of an established law of nature." Quote was also the focus of a Bloom County cartoon on Feb. 10, 1985, by Berkely Breathed.
"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire; it wafts across the electrified borders." ---Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. President. This quote takes on a whole new meaning when you discover that it was part of remarks Reagan was making related to the Berlin Wall. His comments were published in The Guardian (a London newspaper) in June 14, 1989.
Good quotation sources offer the ability to search by: 1) person's name and 2) topic or keyword.
For more stimulating scientific quotations (each with a proper source cited) can be found in the Parks Library Reference Collection (on Tier 2):
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations. Oxford University Press, 2003.
Call number: REF PN 6081 O89 2003
This book contains a number of scientific quotations pulled from literary works - e.g., those of Isaac Newton, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and Blaise Pascal.
Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Call number: REF Q 173 O94 2005
The Yale Book of Quotations. Edited by Fred R. Shapiro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Call number: REF PN 6081 Y35 2006
