Kuhn, Thomas

"Looked at from the side, solutions often appear trivial; looked at from the other side, they may appear impossible."

"To discover why a man or women becomes a scientist is a problem in the psychology of human motivation."

"The scientific community must ultimately be governed by a concern with truth."

"Paradigm shifts are extraordinary because they require abandoning shared assumptions."

"History need not repeat itself, but it does rhyme in the structure of scientific revolutions."

"The facts themselves are not given to scientists until they have chosen a paradigm."

"New discoveries are seldom the by-product of an activity aimed at producing them."

"A scientist's creativity is manifested when he identifies anomalies and resolves them through innovation."

"The resistance to new ideas is not about the idea; it is about the security that the old paradigm provides."

"Scientific practice will always retain an element of art and intuition, not merely calculation."

"Once a paradigm becomes established, scientists stop seeing alternative possibilities."

"The young scientist learns to see the world through the spectacles of the theory he is taught."

"What we come to call discoveries are often re-descriptions of knowledge already in hand."

"The practice of science depends on the willingness to pursue anomalies without knowing where they lead."

"The scientist who pauses to examine his own practice discovers unsuspected things about the nature of knowledge."

"Every revolution is embedded in its own incommensurability with the past."

"Scientific crises are not weaknesses but opportunities for growth."

"The resistance to paradigm shifts is often greatest among those most invested in the old paradigm."

"A mature science is one in which a field is guided by shared exemplars and shared standards."

"Understanding a scientific revolution requires understanding not just the new paradigm but why the old one failed."

"The scientist must learn to think about what he cannot think about in the old way."

"Progress in science is contingent on the willingness to embrace uncertainty."

"The history of science reveals that most of what we thought we knew was wrong."

"Scientific communities are bound together by shared paradigmatic assumptions, not by shared metaphysical commitments."

"The anomaly that leads to crisis must first be recognized as an anomaly."

"What seems like a defect in a paradigm is often a sign that it is beginning to work."

"The revolutions that lead to discovery are often precipitated by the failure of existing institutions to solve their problems."

"Scientific belief is not merely a logical deduction from nature; it is a human construction."

"The scientist who sees anomalies first possesses a distinct advantage in the field."

"Paradigms change when the community collectively recognizes that the old one is no longer adequate."