"Scientific facts are of little value in themselves. Their significance is their bearing upon other facts, enabling us to generalize and so to discover principles, just as the accurate measurement of the position of a star may be without value in itself, but in relation to other similar measurement of other stars may become the means of discovering their proper motions. We refine our instruments; we render more trustworthy our means of observation we extend our range of experimental inquiry, and thus lay the foundation for the future work, with the full knowledge that, although our researches can not extend beyond certain limits, the field itself is, even within those limits, inexhaustible." (Elihu Thompson, "The Field of Experimental Research", 1901)
"[…] scientific research is somewhat like unraveling complicated tangles of strings, in which luck is almost as vital as skill and accurate observation." (Ernst Mach, "Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry", 1905)
"At bottom each 'exact' science is, and must be speculative, and its chief tool of research, too rarely used with both courage and judgement, is the regulated imagination." (Reginald A Daly, "Igneous Rocks and their Origin", 1914)
"Physics has progressed because, in the first place, she accepted the uniformity of nature; because, in the next place, she early discovered the value of exact measurements; because, in the third place, she concentrated her attention on the regularities that underlie the complexities of phenomena as they appear to us; and lastly, and not the least significant, because she emphasized the importance of the experimental method of research. An ideal or crucial experiment is a study of an event, controlled so as to give a definite and measurable answer to a question - an answer in terms of specific theoretical ideas, or better still an answer in terms of better understood relations." (Thomas H Morgan, "The Relation of Biology to Physics", Science Vol. LXV (1679), 1927)
"Research is fundamentally a state of mind involving continual reexamination of doctrines and axioms upon which current thought and action are based. It is, therefore, critical of existing practices." (Theobald Smith, "The Influence of Research in Bringing into Closer Relationship the Practice of Medicine and Public Health Activities", American Journal of Medical Sciences, 1929)
"In every important advance the physicist finds that the fundamental laws are simplified more and more as experimental research advances. He is astonished to notice how sublime order emerges from what appeared to be chaos. And this cannot be traced back to the workings of his own mind but is due to a quality that is inherent in the world of perception." (Albert Einstein, 1932)
"Statistics is a scientific discipline concerned with collection, analysis, and interpretation of data obtained from observation or experiment. The subject has a coherent structure based on the theory of Probability and includes many different procedures which contribute to research and development throughout the whole of Science and Technology." (Egon Pearson, 1936)
"The researcher worker, in his efforts to express the fundamental laws of Nature in mathematical form, should strive mainly for mathematical beauty. He should still take simplicity into consideration in a subordinate way to beauty. […] It often happens that the requirements of simplicity and beauty are the same, but where they clash the latter must take precedence." (Paul A M Dirac, "The Relation Between Mathematics and Physics", Proceedings of the Royal Society , Volume LIX, 1939)
"While practical benefits often result from pure academic research […], such benefits are not guaranteed and cannot be predicted; nor need they be seen as the ultimate goal." (Abraham Flexner, 1939)
"[…] the major mathematical research acquires an organization and orientation similar to the poetical function which, adjusting by means of metaphor disjunctive elements, displays a structure identical to the sensitive universe. Similarly, by means of its axiomatic or theoretical foundation, mathematics assimilates various doctrines and serves the instructive purpose, the one set up by the unifying moral universe of concepts. " (Dan Barbilian, "The Autobiography of the Scientist", 1940)
"Mathematical research can lend its organisational characteristics to poetry, whereby disjointed metaphors take on a universal sense. Similarly, the axiomatic foundations of group theory can be assimilated into a larger moral concept of a unified universe. Without this, mathematics would be a laborious Barbary." (Dan Barbilian, "The Autobiography of the Scientist", 1940)
"Unlike art, science is genuinely progressive. Achievement in the fields of research and technology is cumulative; each generation begins at the point where its predecessor left off." (Aldous Huxley, "Science, Liberty and Peace", 1946)
"A successful hypothesis is not necessarily a permanent hypothesis, but it is one which stimulates additional research, opens up new fields, or explains and coordinates previously unrelated facts." (Farrington Daniels, "Outlines of Physical Chemistry", 1948)
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