Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Science is defined by proven methods, while speculation becomes literature.
- In plain terms
- Only successful methods are science; guesses are literature.
- What can you take from it?
- Focus on what works rather than unproven theories.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Where is the line between science and literature?
- How do we judge success in science?
Another view
Unsuccessful theories often pave the way for later science.
More from Paul Valery
Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of sc…
Permalink to quote #8 An intelligent woman is a woman with whom one can be as stupid as one wants.
Permalink to quote #10 Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of any conceivable equ…
Permalink to quote #7
Related quotes
There is nothing more practical than a good theory.
Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Brezhnev quote #1 Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in darkness.
Thomas V. BartholinThomas V. Bartholin quote #1 I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if I could purge it of t…
Francis BaconFrancis Bacon quote #3