George Sarton Quotes
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Wisdom is not mathematical, nor astronomical, nor zoological; when it talks too much of any one thing it ceases to be itself. There are wise physicists, but wisdom is not physical; there are wise physicians, but wisdom is not medical.
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I am obliged to deal with hundreds of men and to make them live without killing the reader.
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On the basis of my historical experience, I fully believe that mathematics of the 25th century will be as different from that of today as the latter is from that of the 16th century.
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If we are generous enough, we can stretch our souls everywhere and everywhen else. If we succeed in doing so, we shall discover that our present embraces the past and the future and that the whole world is our province.
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Some forty years of experience in my field as a scholar and as a teacher have given me great confidence mixed with greater humility.
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Perhaps the main, as well as the least obvious, achievement of the Middle Ages, was the creation of the experimental spirit, or more exactly its slow incubation. This was primarily due to Muslims down to the end of the twelfth century, then to Christians.
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science is the most revolutionary force in the world.
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Hellenic science is a victory of rationalism, which appears greater, not smaller, when one is made to realize that it had been won in spite of the irrational beliefs of the Greek people; all in all, it was a triumph of reason in the face of unreason. Some knowledge of Greek superstitions is needed not only for a proper appreciation of that triumph but also for the justification of occasional failures, such as the many Platonic aberrations.
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All men are our brothers. As far as the discovery of the truth is concerned, they are all working for the same purpose; they may be separated by the accidents of space and time, and by the exigencies of race, religion, nationality, and other groupings; from the point of view of eternity they are working together.
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Scientific achievements seem evanescent, because the very progress of science causes their supersedure; yet some of them are of so fundamental a nature that they are immortal in a deeper way.
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The darkness, of which the historians complain, is essentially the darkness of their own ignorance.