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The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

Alan Lightman

it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn’t there. Or ignore what is.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Hard Ignore Invent Real Sometimes Tell There
People are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Content Contradictory Long People Reason World
In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Carefully Extremely Fiction Handle Idea Write
But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Breeze Disturbance Firmness Illusion Image Kaleidoscope Past Pattern Sudden
I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Couple Every Like Lot Re-read Reread Some Try Year
A book, especially a longer book, it’s a different kind of force that pushes you through it. It’s a vision of the whole thing.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Different Especially Force Kind Longer Push Vision
There is a place where time stands still.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Place Stand Still Time
The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Future Order Organisation Past Pattern Point
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in atime of pain or of joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy No One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
All writers have roots they draw from – travel, work, family. My roots are in science and it is fertile ground for fiction.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Draw Family Root Travel Work Writer
One day I’m going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do….is to watch these birds.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bloodstream Book Day Deep Gom Got One Osprey Real Write
It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Impulse Sincerity World
In a world without future, each parting of friends is a death. In a world without future, each loneliness is final.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Death Each Friend Future Part World
I picked such seemingly disparate essays, I thought it was important to say what was the guiding principle in the selection rather than focus on any one essay.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Disparate Essay Guide Important Pick Power Say Seemingly Thought
Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop betting. Scientists are buffoons, not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bet Irrational Rational Scientific Stop
You’ve made something grand, but it will be grander if it has feeling and beauty and harmony.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beauty Feel Grand Grander Harmony Something

The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

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The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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