Quotes from Anne Sayre

There is no real parallel to this in science, which abhors error, and which concerns matters in which naïveté cannot be distinguished from ignorance.

The general notion of raising the status of women was never more than peripheral to Rosalind, and on the whole it irritated her for its imprecision.

France is not England, and nowhere do they differ more than in their attitude towards intellectuals, toward women, and toward those who happen to be both.

Absurdities exasperated her. At the same time, the slow process of patiently leading recalcitrant thinkers to better thoughts by artful persuasions seemed to her a waste of time--a logical argument, cogently expressed, was surely sufficient to convince, and if it did not convince, then the case might well be hopeless and not worth pursuing.

When an atmosphere grows thick enough with justifications, explanations, rationalizations, postures, and regrets, not to omit occasional hostilities, untruth disappears just as surely as truth does.

In science, even more than elsewhere, to suppress a truth is to consent to a lie.

Those who are reserved by nature, and who rarely make friends quickly, or lightly, have a natural reluctance to say good-by, if only because new relationships will not quickly, or lightly, replace the ones that are left behind.

But one consequence of learning anything new is that one usually learns more than anticipated.

Talk is essential, talk stimulates, arguments clarify, speculations which are thrown out to the winds may fall like seed to spring up with a crop of perceptions.

The notion that accurate statements made by a woman scientist are first to be regarded as likely outpourings of feminism, and only under the strong pressure of irrefutable demonstration as science is Watson's own contribution.

I have yet to find, anyway, that those who urge the broad, philosophical view with respect to the work of others are quite so broad or philosophical when it comes to the correct attribution of their own productions.

But if one is going to create characters, I suggest that one is well-advised not to attach to them the names of real persons, living or dead.

Some tragedy is always implied when human beings can in no way communicate; what happened at King's is only a special example of it.

She had a capacity for tact, but she was also extremely honest, and if tact and honesty conflicted on any important matter, the honesty won.

She was not engaging in any broad or sweeping challenge when she insisted that her own status be acknowledged as not only "equal" to that of any comparable male scientist, but to be quite indistinguishable as well, because to her the emphasis was solely upon scientist, not upon the adjective. She was not declaring war on behalf of women's rights, but demanding on behalf of science that those who served it be judged solely and wholly upon their abilities.