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?
Eventually we must leave Earth-at least a certain number of our progeny must as our sun approaches the end of its solar life cycle. But just as terrestrial explorers have always led the way for settlers, this will also happen extraterrestrially. Earth is our cradle, not our final destiny.
Refining is inevitable in science when you have made measurements of a phenomenon for a long period of time.
The imposing edifice of science provides a challenging view of what can be achieved by the accumulation of many small efforts in a steady objective and dedicated search for truth.
True science teaches us to doubt and, in ignorance, to refrain.
Many of the problems facing the nation and the world today may only be solved if their technical elements are understood - climate change, energy supply, health care, and infrastructure, to name just a few.
When I write a scientific treatise, I might reach 100 people. When the 'National Geographic' covers a project, it communicates about plants and fish and underwater technology to more than 10 million people.
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