Quote

I grew up in England and we spent most of the time on Latin and Greek and very little on science, and I think that was good because it meant we didn't get turned off. It was... Science was something we did for fun and not because we had to.

Freeman Dyson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Freeman Dyson
Age: 96 †
Born: 1923
Born: December 15
Died: 2020
Died: February 28
Mathematician
Nuclear Physicist
Physicist
Professor
Theoretical Physicist
Crowthorne
Berkshire
Freeman John Dyson
Freeman J. Dyson
Think
Fun
Thinking
Science
Latin
Didn
Greek
Littles
Spent
Little
Turned
Something
Meant
Good
England
Time
Grew

More quotes by Freeman Dyson

Image
Scepticism is as important for a good journalist as it is for a good scientist.
Freeman Dyson
Image
If you're in the business world, that's what's expected: You should go bust and then start again on something else. So it's a much more relaxed kind of a culture. It's also competitive, but not in such a vicious way. I think the academic world is actually much more destructive of young people.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Intelligence may indeed be a benign influence creating isolated groups of philosopher-kings far apart in the heavens... On the other hand, intelligence may be a cancer of purposeless technological exploitation, sweeping across a galaxy as irresistibly as it has swept across our own planet.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Thanks to the discoveries of astronomers in the twentieth century, we now know that the heat death is a myth. The heat death can never happen, and there is no paradox.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Some of my friends like to keep science and religion together, but I certainly like to keep them separate.
Freeman Dyson
Image
I think we're doing pretty well. It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news.
Freeman Dyson
Image
It is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of men can escape from their neighbors and from their government, to go and live as they please in the wilderness. A truly isolated, small, and creative society will never again be possible on this planet.
Freeman Dyson
Image
The technologies that raise the fewest ethical problems are those that work on a human scale, brightening the lives of individual people.
Freeman Dyson
Image
The idea that God may be approached and understood through intellectual analysis is uniquely Christian... It is probably not an accident that modern science grew explosively in Christian Europe and left the rest of the world behind.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Ethical progress is the only cure for the damage done by scientific progress.
Freeman Dyson
Image
If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
Freeman Dyson
Image
New directions in science are launched by new tools much more often than by new concepts. The effect of a concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of a tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Just because you see pictures of glaciers falling into the ocean doesn't mean anything bad is happening. This is something that happens all the time. It's part of the natural cycle of things. We know from measurements that glaciers have been melting for 200 years at least.
Freeman Dyson
Image
I am saying that all predictions concerning climate are highly uncertain.
Freeman Dyson
Image
CO2 is so beneficial...it would be crazy to try to reduce it
Freeman Dyson
Image
Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes.
Freeman Dyson
Image
That was the wonderful thing about Ramanujan. He discovered so much, and yet he left so much more in his garden for other people to discover.
Freeman Dyson
Image
The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing.
Freeman Dyson
Image
Everything in my life was luck. The key to having an interesting life is to always say yes to anything crazy.
Freeman Dyson