The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that scientific pursuits often collect knowledge without necessarily applying it practically.
Ralph Waldo Emerson compares the sciences, particularly mathematics and astronomy, to sportsmen who hunt for whatever opportunities come their way. This analogy implies that while scientists may gather vast amounts of knowledge and information, they don't always have a use for it, indicating a pursuit for discovery that may not immediately translate into practical application.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of interdisciplinary studies.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
...while science gives us implements to use, science alone does not determine for what ends they will be employed. Radio is an amazing invention. Yet now that it is here, one suspects that Hitler never could have consolidated his totalitarian control over Germany without its use. One never can tell what hands will reach out to lay hold on scientific gifts, or to what employment they will be put. Ever the old barbarian emerges, destructively using the new civilization.
Science and technology have freed humanity from many burdens and given us this new perspective and great power. This power can be used for the good of all. If wisdom governs our actions; but if the world is mad or foolish, it can destroy itself just when great advances and triumphs are almost without its grasp.
The day that you stop looking - because you're content God did it - I don't need you in the lab. You're useless on the frontier of understanding the nature of the world.
The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.
Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment.
A black hole really is an object with very rich structure, just like Earth has a rich structure of mountains, valleys, oceans, and so forth. Its warped space whirls around the central singularity like air in a tornado.
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