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Top 30 Sam Kean Quotes (2025 Update)

Sam Kean Quote: “Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.”

1. “Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness.”

2. “Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.”

3. “Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Alessandro Volta, an Italian count and the inspiration for the eponym “volt,” demonstrated this back around 1800 with a clever experiment. Volta had a number of volunteers form a chain and each pinch the tongue of one neighbor. The two end people then put their fingers on battery leads. Instantly, up and down the line, people tasted each other’s fingers as sour.”

4. “Alessandro Volta, an Italian count and the inspiration for the eponym “volt,” demonstrated this back around 1800 with a clever experiment. Volta had a number of volunteers form a chain and each pinch the tongue of one neighbor. The two end people then put their fingers on battery leads. Instantly, up and down the line, people tasted each other’s fingers as sour.”

Sam Kean Quote: “If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.”

5. “If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Since before even the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, human beings used the stars and seasons to track time and record their most important moments. Cesium severed that link with the heavens, effaced it just as surely as urban streetlamps blot out constellations.”

6. “Since before even the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, human beings used the stars and seasons to track time and record their most important moments. Cesium severed that link with the heavens, effaced it just as surely as urban streetlamps blot out constellations.”

Sam Kean Quote: “In this thinking, the mind’s conscious, decision-making “will” is actually a by-product of whatever the unconscious brain has already decided to do. Free will is a retrospective illusion, however convincing, and we feel “urges” to do only what we’re going to do anyway. Pride alone makes us insist otherwise.”

7. “In this thinking, the mind’s conscious, decision-making “will” is actually a by-product of whatever the unconscious brain has already decided to do. Free will is a retrospective illusion, however convincing, and we feel “urges” to do only what we’re going to do anyway. Pride alone makes us insist otherwise.”

Sam Kean Quote: “We crowned ourselves Homo sapiens, the wise ape, but Homo limbus might have been more apt.”

8. “We crowned ourselves Homo sapiens, the wise ape, but Homo limbus might have been more apt.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Einstein came to distrust quantum mechanics. Its statistical and deeply probabilistic nature sounded too much like gambling to him, and it prompted him to object that “God does not play dice with the universe.” He was wrong, and it’s too bad that most people have never heard the rejoinder by Niels Bohr: “Einstein! Stop telling God what to do.”

9. “Einstein came to distrust quantum mechanics. Its statistical and deeply probabilistic nature sounded too much like gambling to him, and it prompted him to object that “God does not play dice with the universe.” He was wrong, and it’s too bad that most people have never heard the rejoinder by Niels Bohr: “Einstein! Stop telling God what to do.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he seemed to taunt, and you’ll find them.”

10. “Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he seemed to taunt, and you’ll find them.”

Sam Kean Quote: “A few years later, Mendeleev, now famous, divorced his wife and wanted to remarry. Although the conservative local church said he had to wait seven years, he bribed a priest and got on with the nuptials. This technically made him a bigamist, but no one dared arrest him. When a local bureaucrat complained to the tsar about the double standard applied to the case- the priest was defrocked-the tsar primly replied, “I admit, Mendeleev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev.”

11. “A few years later, Mendeleev, now famous, divorced his wife and wanted to remarry. Although the conservative local church said he had to wait seven years, he bribed a priest and got on with the nuptials. This technically made him a bigamist, but no one dared arrest him. When a local bureaucrat complained to the tsar about the double standard applied to the case- the priest was defrocked-the tsar primly replied, “I admit, Mendeleev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Biologists summarize these hypothalamic duties as the “four F’s” of animal behavior – feeding, fleeing, fighting, and, well, sexual congress.”

12. “Biologists summarize these hypothalamic duties as the “four F’s” of animal behavior – feeding, fleeing, fighting, and, well, sexual congress.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Hat manufacturers once used a bright orange mercury wash to separate fur from pelts, and the common hatters who dredged around in the steamy vats, like the mad one in Alice in Wonderland, gradually lost their hair and wits.”

13. “Hat manufacturers once used a bright orange mercury wash to separate fur from pelts, and the common hatters who dredged around in the steamy vats, like the mad one in Alice in Wonderland, gradually lost their hair and wits.”

Sam Kean Quote: “So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever – fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.”

14. “So if big enough droplets fell far enough fast enough, someone floating right near the metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter maybe, just maybe, could have looked up into its cream and orange sky and seen the most spectacular show ever – fireworks lighting up the Jovian night with a trillion streaks of brilliant crimson, what scientists call neon rain.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry.”

15. “Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry.”

$Sam Kean Quote: “For more details about the Curies especially, see Sheilla Jones’s wonderful book The Quantum Ten, an account of the surprisingly contentious and fractious early days of quantum mechanics, circa 1925.”$

16. “For more details about the Curies especially, see Sheilla Jones’s wonderful book The Quantum Ten, an account of the surprisingly contentious and fractious early days of quantum mechanics, circa 1925.”

Sam Kean Quote: “The irony is too rich not to point out. When arranging the different human races in tiers, from just below the angels to just above the brutes, smug racialist scientists of the 1800s always equated black skin with ‘subhuman’ beasts like Neanderthals. But facts is facts: pure Nordic Europeans carry far more Neanderthal DNA than any modern African.”

17. “The irony is too rich not to point out. When arranging the different human races in tiers, from just below the angels to just above the brutes, smug racialist scientists of the 1800s always equated black skin with ‘subhuman’ beasts like Neanderthals. But facts is facts: pure Nordic Europeans carry far more Neanderthal DNA than any modern African.”

Sam Kean Quote: “So despite all the advances of neuroscience, all the fancy machines and illuminating insights, we still need our old, wet gray matter – the only place where emotion and reason come together and alchemize into what we call wisdom – to tell us how to act.”

18. “So despite all the advances of neuroscience, all the fancy machines and illuminating insights, we still need our old, wet gray matter – the only place where emotion and reason come together and alchemize into what we call wisdom – to tell us how to act.”

Sam Kean Quote: “It sits below aluminium on the periodic table and looks a lot like it. If you had a hunk of each metal in front of you, you probably couldn’t tell them apart. Except that gallium has one unusual property: it melts at temperatures just above room temperature. It will even soften in the palm of your hand. So it’s sort of a classic nerdy science prank to make a spoon out of gallium and serve it to somebody with coffee or tea – then watch them recoil as the Earl Grey “eats” their utensil.”

19. “It sits below aluminium on the periodic table and looks a lot like it. If you had a hunk of each metal in front of you, you probably couldn’t tell them apart. Except that gallium has one unusual property: it melts at temperatures just above room temperature. It will even soften in the palm of your hand. So it’s sort of a classic nerdy science prank to make a spoon out of gallium and serve it to somebody with coffee or tea – then watch them recoil as the Earl Grey “eats” their utensil.”

Sam Kean Quote: “During dreams, the pons also dispatches a message to the spinal cord beneath it, which produces chemicals to make your muscles flaccid. This temporary paralysis prevents you from acting out nightmares by fleeing the bedroom or taking swings at werewolves. While.”

20. “During dreams, the pons also dispatches a message to the spinal cord beneath it, which produces chemicals to make your muscles flaccid. This temporary paralysis prevents you from acting out nightmares by fleeing the bedroom or taking swings at werewolves. While.”

Sam Kean Quote: “For a long time, I kept an eye out for element eighty at school and in books, as you might watch for a childhood friend’s name.”

21. “For a long time, I kept an eye out for element eighty at school and in books, as you might watch for a childhood friend’s name.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which can be fatal. Many dinosaurs might have died this way when a metropolis-sized asteroid or comet struck the earth 65 million years ago.”

22. “Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which can be fatal. Many dinosaurs might have died this way when a metropolis-sized asteroid or comet struck the earth 65 million years ago.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Yet he could somehow still feel that missing four-fifths of himself – still feel pain in his invisible fingers, still feel his invisible toes twitching. “Often at night I would try with one lost hand to grope for the other,” he recalled, but the ghosts always eluded him.”

23. “Yet he could somehow still feel that missing four-fifths of himself – still feel pain in his invisible fingers, still feel his invisible toes twitching. “Often at night I would try with one lost hand to grope for the other,” he recalled, but the ghosts always eluded him.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Negative experiences can wire neurons together, too.”

24. “Negative experiences can wire neurons together, too.”

Sam Kean Quote: “As usual, those military leaders were eager to enlist scientists in World War II, and the scientists dutifully exacerbated the war’s gruesomeness through technology.”

25. “As usual, those military leaders were eager to enlist scientists in World War II, and the scientists dutifully exacerbated the war’s gruesomeness through technology.”

Sam Kean Quote: “B1 to harvest energy from glucose, the end result of digesting carbohydrates. Brain cells especially rely on glucose for energy, since other sugars cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. The brain also needs thiamine to make myelin sheaths and to build certain neurotransmitters.”

26. “B1 to harvest energy from glucose, the end result of digesting carbohydrates. Brain cells especially rely on glucose for energy, since other sugars cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. The brain also needs thiamine to make myelin sheaths and to build certain neurotransmitters.”

Sam Kean Quote: “It was the bad luck of eating patient zero.”

27. “It was the bad luck of eating patient zero.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Don’t damn people to hell, damn them to Venus.”

28. “Don’t damn people to hell, damn them to Venus.”

Sam Kean Quote: “But when we sacrifice morals for scientific progress, we often end up with neither.”

29. “But when we sacrifice morals for scientific progress, we often end up with neither.”

Sam Kean Quote: “As historian George Dyson neatly summarized the technological history of that decade, “Computers led to bombs, and bombs led to computers.”

30. “As historian George Dyson neatly summarized the technological history of that decade, “Computers led to bombs, and bombs led to computers.”

Sam Kean Quote: “Rivalries are funny things. They waste time and energy. They stir up mean instincts and consume us with petty emotions. Yet in doing so, rivalries also push people to greatness.”

31. “Rivalries are funny things. They waste time and energy. They stir up mean instincts and consume us with petty emotions. Yet in doing so, rivalries also push people to greatness.”

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