James Bryant Conant Quotes

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.

Just like a turtle, we only make progress if we stick our neck out.

Behavior which appears superficially correct but is intrinsically corrupt always irritates those who see below the surface.

Education is what is left after all that has been learnt is forgotten.

... scientific research is compounded of ... empirical procedures, general speculative ideas, and mathematical or abstract reasoning.

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement, surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.

A Harvard education consists of what you learn at Harvard while you are not studying.

Science advances, not by the accumulation of new facts, but by the continuous development of new concepts.

Every vital organization owes its birth and life to an exciting and daring idea.

He who enters a university walks on hallowed ground.

Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence.

Even the development of the steam engine owed but little to the advancement of science.

The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier.

Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.

There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science-that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily, and leaving them to direct themselves.

Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation.

It seems as though I were in a lunatic asylum, but I am never sure who is the attendant and who the inmate.

Each honest calling each walk of life has its own elite its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance.

Democracy is a small hard core of common agreement surrounded by a rich variety of individual differences.