discoveries quotes

Vim et virtutem et consequentias rerum inventarum notare juvat; quae non in aliis manifestius occurrunt, quam in illis tribus quae antiquis incognitae, et quarum primordia, licet recentia, obscura et ingloria sunt: Artis nimirum Imprimendi, PulverisTormentarii, et Acus Nauticae. Haec enim tria rerum faciem et statum in orbe terrarum mutaverunt. It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origin, though recent, is obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder and the magnet [ie the compass]. For thesethreehave changedthewholefaceand stateof things throughout the world.

- Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
  Novum Organum, bk.1, aphorism129 (translated by  James Spedding).

At bottom, the society of scientists ismore important than theirdiscoveries.What science has to teach us here isnot its techniques but its spirit: the irresistible need to explore.

-Jacob Bronowski
  Science and Human Values.

Furnished as all Europe is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experimentation, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.

- Anne Frank
  Letter to Sir  Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, 27  Jul.