“One knows only when one knows little; with knowledge, doubt increases.”

Original: Eigentlich weiß man nur, wenn man wenig weiß; mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel. — Greater knowledge brings awareness of complexity and the limits of certainty. · Maxims and Reflections (German)

• Doubt
• Knowledge
• Science

“An artist's inner manoeuvres and a scientist's are not different, provided both place desire above career.”

Original: Il n'y a pas de différence, autre que nominale, entre les manœuvres intérieures d'un artiste ou poète, et celle d'un savant, en les prenant parmi ceux qui placent leur désir au-dessus de toute carrière. — Valéry sees artistic and scientific creation as closely related forms of disciplined intellectual desire. · Cahiers (French)

• Artists
• Creativity
• Science

“It will never be a very exact science, or even a nearly exact one.”

Even while advocating systematic criticism, he acknowledges the limits of literary study as a science. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Humility
• Science

“Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death.”

A stark pairing of living image against a knowledge that kills vision · Inscriptions on the Laocoön plate

• Art
• Life
• Science

“The true aim of Science is something other than utility.”

Rejecting the idea that knowledge is justified only by practical usefulness · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Knowledge
• Learning
• Science

“The possibility of pre-natal poisoning was interesting, but what I had in mind was to raise the question of its effect upon moral responsibility.”

Explaining the deeper ethical question behind a scientific premise in his fiction · Letter concerning Elsie Venner

• Morality
• Science
• Writing

“He knows that his practical interests will reduce this living object to a mere utility, and that his sciences will disintegrate it for their convenience into their respective abstracts.”

A criticism of the tendency to reduce complex human experience to useful or abstract categories. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Poetry
• Science
• Utility

“I would give a good knock about the rocks in Maine.”

A glimpse of his youthful curiosity about natural science and field exploration · Letter to Phineas Barnes

• Discovery
• Nature
• Science

“I do not know that such a pre-natal poisoning might not affect the disposition, but I do not assert it.”

A revealing example of scientific caution in distinguishing possibility from proof · Letter to Dr Edwards

• Caution
• Knowledge
• Science

“The little unexplained facts always contain enough to overturn all explanations of the great facts.”

Original: Les petits faits inexpliqués contiennent toujours de quoi renverser toutes les explications des grands faits. — Small anomalies can expose the weakness of grand theories and sweeping explanations. · Cahiers (French)

• Doubt
• Evidence
• Science

“One should call only the set of recipes that always succeed science. Everything else is literature.”

Original: Il faut n'appeler science que l'ensemble des recettes qui réussissent toujours. Tout le reste est littérature. — A provocative definition of science based on repeatable results rather than claims of authority. · Moralités (French)

• Certainty
• Literature
• Science

“The intelligence of Newton lay in saying that the moon falls, although everyone can see that it does not.”

Original: Le génie de Newton a consisté à dire que la lune tombe alors que tout le monde voit bien qu'elle ne tombe pas. — Scientific genius can consist in seeing a deeper reality beneath an apparently obvious fact. · Cahiers (French)

• Genius
• Perception
• Science

“There is something wonderfully fascinating about these venomous beasts, and I can never read too much about them.”

Revealing his enthusiastic curiosity about the natural world · Letter concerning serpents

• Nature
• Science
• Wonder

“The happiest and freest man is the scientist investigating nature.”

Valuing attention turned outward over self-absorption · Essay, Themes in My Poems, 1941

• Nature
• Science

“The partisans of Science define the aim of learning to be utility.”

Introducing his challenge to purely utilitarian accounts of education · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Education
• Knowledge
• Science

“I was amazed afterwards to receive letters from two men of character and position describing similar cases in their families.”

Showing his surprise when anecdotal reports appeared to support an unusual hypothesis · Conversation concerning Elsie Venner

• Evidence
• Psychology
• Science

“The Frenchmen have half a century in advance.”

His lively early assessment of the superiority he perceived in French medical science and education · Letter from Europe, 1835

• Discovery
• Education
• Science

“The cultivation of those sciences which have enlarged the limits of the empire of man over the external world, is a principal source of moral improvement.”

Linking intellectual discovery with humanity's moral development. · Essay, A Defence of Poetry

• Growth
• Knowledge
• Science

“Science has accomplished marvels for the material comforts of mankind, but it has been divorced from philosophy and it has misled the world by suggesting that the greater values can be produced by the less.”

On the spiritual poverty of materialism · Speech, Conference of Universities, 1933

• Philosophy
• Science
• Values

“One must hold fast to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise one would not investigate.”

Original: Der Mensch muß bei dem Glauben verharren, daß das Unbegreifliche begreiflich sei; er würde sonst nicht forschen. — The desire to understand what initially seems mysterious is presented as the foundation of enquiry. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, Makaria’s Archive (German)

• Discovery
• Knowledge
• Science

“The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.”

Defining inquiry as a disciplined movement from surface impressions towards demonstrable truth · Book, Modern Painters

• Knowledge
• Science
• Truth

“Newton's genius consisted in saying that the moon falls, when everyone can plainly see that it does not fall.”

Original: Le génie de Newton a consisté à dire que la lune tombe alors que tout le monde voit bien qu'elle ne tombe pas. — Great thinking can reveal a deeper truth precisely where ordinary perception appears to contradict it. · Cahiers (French)

• Genius
• Perception
• Science

“It is a most fascinating subject every way, chemically, biologically, and theologically.”

Showing his habit of connecting scientific curiosity with wider intellectual questions · Letter concerning serpent venom

• Mystery
• Nature
• Science

“The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world.”

A concise warning about the immense human consequences of a seemingly small natural threat; the exact source is not securely identified. · Remark commonly attributed to Ronald Ross

• Danger
• Health
• Science