art
+ literature
▲ 1,710 quotes and all is well.
The archive contains 1,710 quotes. From Dorothy Parker to Pinky and Brain, you're sure to find something special.
There are quote collections about
love,
heart,
desire,
life,
death,
god,
mind,
science.
Feeling lucky? Read 10 random quotes. Well, will you, punk?
All quotes about science
280
Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.
M. de Unamuno
735
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.
Noam Chomsky
870
The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
T.H. Huxley
Biogenesis and Abiogenesis
1466
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time
1467
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
Pope John Paul II
1561
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.
Paul Dirac
Mathematical Circles Adieu by H. Eves [quoted]
1607
Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry — an aberration which is happily almost impossible — it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.
Auguste Comte
Cours de Philosophie Positive (1830)
1609
Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division.
1610
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.
Ashley Montague
1625
This isn’t a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.
Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
1630
Art is Science in Love.
E.F. Weisslitz
1662
A poet is, after all, a sort of scientist, but engaged in a qualitative science in which nothing is measurable. He lives with data that cannot be numbered, and his experiments can be done only once. The information in a poem is, by definition, not reproducible. He becomes an equivalent of scientist, in the act of examining and sorting the things popping in [to his head], finding the marks of remote similarity, points of distant relationship, tiny irregularities that indicate that this one is really the same as that one over there only more important. Gauging the fit, he can meticulously place pieces of the universe together, in geometric configurations that are as beautiful and balanced as crystals.
Lewis Thomas
The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
1665
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
Isaac Asimov
The Roving Mind (Ch 25)
news
+ thoughts
Mon 04-05-2026
It is not certain that everything is uncertain. —Blaise Pascal
We have already explored how we can mitigate bias caused by confounding variables in observational studies using propensity score (PS) matching (PSM) and propensity score weighting (PSW). However, any statistical model is only as good as its assumptions and, if it is specified incorrectly, it can itself produce biased estimates of the treatment effect.
▲ Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Double Robustness.
(
read)
This month, we explore double robustness, a powerful statistical concept that provides a valuable “safety net” against the risk of an incorrect model. It offers two opportunities, instead of just one, to obtain a valid estimate of the treatment effect â making it possible to draw credible causal inferences from observational data without having to depend on a single set of modeling assumptions.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2026) Points of significance: Double Robustness. Nat. Methods 23:868–869.
Thu 23-04-2026
My cover design on the 7 April 2026 Nature Biotechnology issue shows the dendrogram that represents a cluster of uniquely expressed (or downregulated) genes in human naive stem cells induced from such cells. Within each dendrogram block, the genomic barcode sequence (sampled from Supplementary Table 1) is depicted with a Code 39 barcode. The highlighted barcode is one of those used for cell isolation.
Ishiguro S. et al. A multi-kingdom genetic barcoding system for precise clone isolation (2026) Nature Biotechnology 44:616–629.
▲ My Nature Biotechnology phylogenetic tree cover (volume 44, issue 4, 7 April 2026).
(
more)
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
▲ A catalogue of my journal and magazine cover designs.
(
more)
Fri 13-03-2026
Celebrate Ï Day (March 14th) and enjoy the art — but only if you're part of the 5%.
Go ahead, see what you can't see.
▲ 2026 Ï DAY | Art for the 5%. Shown in the style of Ishihara color test plates, the art is visible only to those with colour blindness.
(
details)
Wed 23-07-2025
What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry? — William Blake, "The Tyger"
This month, we look at symmetric regression, which, unlike simple linear regression, it is reversible â remaining unaltered when the variables are swapped.
Simple linear regression can summarize the linear relationship between two variables `X` and `Y` â for example, when `Y` is considered the response (dependent) and `X` the predictor (independent) variable.
However, there are times when we are not interested (or able) to distinguish between dependent and independent variables â either because they have the same importance or the same role. This is where symmetric regression can help.
▲ Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression. Geometry of quantities minimized in OLS and symmetric regression. OLS minimizes `\Sigma e_y^2` in `Y` ~ `X` and `\Sigma e_x^2` `X` ~ `Y`. Pythagorean regression minimizes AB (magenta). Geometric means regression (GMR) minimizes area of ABP (orange). Orthogonal regression (OR) minimizes HP (blue).
(
read)
Luca Greco, George Luta, Martin Krzywinski & Naomi Altman (2025) Points of significance: Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression. Nat. Methods 22:1610–1612.
