“Quetelet had introduced a radically new way of thinking about human be...” — Patricia Fara Quote

“Quetelet had introduced a radically new way of thinking about human beings. As one of his admirers put it, 'Man is seen to be an enigma only as an individual, in mass, he is a mathematical problem.' Quetelet's successors took his ideas in many different directions. For one thing, his work was valuable politically because it could be interpreted in different ways. While conservatives insisted that little could be done to alter the current system, radicals accused governments of impeding the natural course of progress, and Utopians--such as Karl Marx--envisaged harmonious societies governed by nature's own laws guaranteeing improvement. Data collection projects proliferated, and statisticians searched for laws governing every aspect of life, ranging from the weather to the growth of civilization, from stock market fluctuations to the incidence of disease. Many scientists took their ideas from Quetelet rather than from abstract textbooks--but they added their own twist. Whereas Quetelet regarded individual deviations from the norm as errors to be eliminated, scientists set out to study how variations occur.”

“Life, from the moment it began on this planet covered by a delicate and fragile atmosphere, has had to battle against countless challenges that threaten its very survival every single second. Beyond this thin layer of air, life, as we know it, cannot exist. Therefore, we must protect our lives fiercely, like shielding a flame from the wind or preserving a beautiful bubble from bursting, or like a dew drop sparkling in the morning sun that we don’t want to let fall. We need to cherish this life intensely and intimately.”

“I don't think that faith, whatever you're being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There's so much mystery. There's so much awe.”

“A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension.”

“Atoms, the building blocks of so-called matter, however much they might seem to be physically circumscribed, aren’t actually like tiny billiard balls. That’s kindergarten science.”

“I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me. I think I have no senses. I believe that body, shape, extension, motion, location are functions. What is there then that can be taken as true? Perhaps only this one thing, that nothing at all is certain.”