"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new...

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense."
-- Carl Sagan (astronomer & astrophysicist, 1934-1996)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

"I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to...

"I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of dally life."
-- Michael Faraday (chemist & physicist, 1791-1867)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."

"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist, 1958- )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson

"The Church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture."

"The Church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture."
-- Elbert Hubbard (writer & philosopher, 1856-1915)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard

"If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it...

"If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery."
-- William Kingdon Clifford (mathematician & philosopher, 1845-1879)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
-- Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist, 1879-1955)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

"Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment.

"Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment. Sometimes it is one foot which is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both - by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it beyond, and so on in unending alternation."
-- Robert Millikan (physicist, 1868-1953)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Andrews_Millikan