On Facts (Unsourced)

"A fact is not novel if it has an analogue which could have some interest. A fact which does not fi t in with a series of known facts is a fact which deserves particular attention. If the mind had to retain all individual facts, it could not manage and science would not exist; but when these facts can be connected by general laws and by theories, when a large number of these facts can be represented by a single one, one can remember them more easily, one can generalise one’s ideas, one can compare one general fact with another general fact and discoveries can succeed each other. It is only when laws can be introduced into a science that it assumes the true character of science." (Joseph L Gay-Lussac)

"All the pictures which science draws of Nature, and which alone seem capable of according with observational facts, are mathematical pictures." (Sir James Jeans)

"By observation, facts are distinctly and minutely impressed in the mind; by analogy, similar facts are connected ; by experiment, new facts are discovered ; and, in the progression of knowledge, observation, guided by analogy, leads to experiment, and analogy, confirmed by experiment, becomes scientific truth." (Sir Humphry Davy)

"Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist." (Steven Pinker) 

"Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed." (Thomas W Moore)

"Facts and values are entangled in science. It's not because scientists are biased, not because they are partial or influenced by other kinds of interests, but because of a commitment to reason, consistency, coherence, plausibility and replicability. These are value commitments." (Alva Noë)

"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable." (Mark Twain)

"[…] facts by themselves are silent. Observation discovers nothing directly of the actions of causes, but only of sequences in time." (Alfred Marshall)

"First accumulate a mass of Facts: and then construct a Theory." (Lewis Carroll)

[Maier’s Law:] "If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of." (Norman R F Maier)

"Imagination, as well as reason, is necessary to perfection in the philosophical mind. A rapidity of combination, a power of perceiving analogies, and of comparing them by facts, is the creative source of discovery." (Sir Humphry Davy)

"In physical science the discovery of new facts is open to every blockhead with patience, manual dexterity, and acute senses; it is less effectually promoted by genius than by co-operation, and more frequently the result of accident than of design." (John Thomson)

"In the study of Nature conjecture must be entirely put aside, and vague hypothesis carefully guarded against. The study of Nature begins with facts, ascends to laws, and raises itself, as far as the limits of man’s intellect will permit, to the knowledge of causes, by the threefold means of observation, experiment and logical deduction." (Jean Baptiste-Andre Dumas)

"No good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong." (James Dewey Watson)

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." (Henry B Adams)

"One might describe the mathematical quality in Nature by saying that the universe is so constituted that mathematics is a useful tool in its description. However, recent advances in physical science show that this statement of the case is too trivial. The connection between mathematics and the description of the universe goes far deeper than this, and one can get an appreciation of it only from a thorough examination of the various facts that make it up." (Paul A M Dirac)

"Science does more than collect facts; it makes sense of them. Great scientists are virtuosi of the art of discovering the meaning of what otherwise might seem barren observations." (Theodosius Dobzhansky)

"Science is not a technique or a body of knowledge, though it uses both. It is rather an attitude of inquiry, or observation and reasoning, with respect to the world. It can be developed, not by memorizing facts or juggling formulas to get an answer, but only by actual practice of scientific observation and reasoning." (Karl T Compton)

"Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine." (Nikola Tesla)

"Some facts can be seen more clearly by example than by proof." (Leonard Euler)

"The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values." (William R Inge)

"The arguments […] by which you support my theories, are most ingenious, but not founded on demonstrated facts; analogy is no proof." (Louis Pasteur)

"The art of observation and that of experimentation are very distinct. In the first case, the fact may either proceed from logical reasons or be mere good fortune; it is sufficient to have some penetration and a sense of truth in order to profit by it. But the art of experimentation leads from the first to the last link of the chain, without hesitation and without a blank, making successive use of Reason, which suggests an alternative, and of Experience, which decides on it, until, starting from a faint glimmer, the full blaze of light is reached." (Jean Baptiste-Andre Dumas)

"The disclosure of a new fact, the leap forward, the conquest over yesterday’s ignorance, is an act not of reason but of imagination, of intuition." (Charles Nicolle)

"The experiment serves two purposes, often independent one from the other: it allows the observation of new facts, hitherto either unsuspected, or not yet well defined; and it determines whether." (René J Dubos)

"[…] the mathematician learns early to accept no fact, to believe no statement, however apparently reasonable or obvious or trivial, until it has been proved, rigorously and totally by a series of steps proceeding from universally accepted first principles." (Alfred Adler)

"The object of education is not only to produce a man who knows, but one who does; who makes his mark in the straggle of life and succeeds well in whatever he undertakes: who can solve the problems of nature and of humanity as they arise, and who, when he knows he is right, can boldly convince the world of the fact." (Henry A Rowland)

"The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows how to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can't concentrate their minds at will." (Swami Vivekananda)

"Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts." (George Santayana)

"There is no drawing the line between physics and metaphysics. If you examine every day facts at all closely, you are a physicist; but if you press your physics at all home, you become a metaphysician; if you press your metaphysics at all home, you are in a fog." (Samuel Butler)

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." (Sir Arthur C Doyle)