In thermodynamics history, thermodynamics quotes are famous thermodynamics quotations or note statements which have been repeated so much that they have gained a certain level of fame. These are shown below arranged in a loose order of precedence and by ranked order of commonality of occurrence:

Founding quotes

“The fascination of a growing science lies in the work of the pioneers at the very borderland of the unknown, but to reach this frontier one must pass over well traveled roads; of these one of the safest and surest is the broad highway of thermodynamics.”

— Gilbert Lewis and Merle Randall, Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances (1923) [2]

"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression that classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown, within the framework of applicability of its basic concepts."

— Albert Einstein, Autobiographical Notes (c. 1940s) [4]

“The concept of an independent system is a pure creation of the imagination. For no material system is or can ever be perfectly isolated from the rest of the world. Nevertheless it completes the mathematician’s ‘blank form of a universe’ without which his investigations are impossible. It enables him to introduce into his geometrical space, not only masses and configurations, but also physical structure and chemical composition. Just as Newton first conclusively showed that this is a world of masses, so Willard Gibbs first revealed it as a world of systems.”

— Lawrence Henderson, The Order of Nature: An Essay (1917) [5]

Second law quotes

“If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

— Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1928) [3]

“There’s as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it.”

– Percy Bridgman, The Nature of Thermodynamics (1941) [17]

“A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the second law of thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?”

— C. P. Snow, 1959 Rede Lecture, “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”. [7]

“What can one say about the philosophical bravado, the cosmic effrontery, the sheer panache of this ailing philosopher with one foot in the grave talking down the second law of thermodynamics? It is a scene fit to set alongside the death of Socrates.”

— Robert Richardson (2007) on William James' derogation of Henry Adams' 1910 A Letter to American Teachers of History. [10]

— Luis Fernández-Galiano,Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy (1982) [12]

Infamous quotes

— Roger Caillois, Coherences Aventureuses (1973), [6]

Other quotes

“Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don't understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don't understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn't bother you anymore.”

— Arnold Sommerfeld, when asked why he had never written a book on the subject (c.1950) [11]

“Luddites and anti-intellectuals do not master the differential equations of thermodynamics or the biochemical cures of illness ... they stay in thatched huts and die young.”

— Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (1978) [9]

“It must be admitted, I think, that the laws of thermodynamics have a different feel from most of the other laws of physics. There is something more palpably verbal about them—they smell more of their human origins. The guiding motif is strange to most of physics; namely, a capitalizing of the universal failure of human beings to construct perpetual motion machines of either the first or the second kind. Why should we expect nature to be interested either positively or negatively in the purposes of human beings, particularly purposes of such unblushingly economic tinge?”

— Percy Bridgman, The Nature of Thermodynamics (1941) [13]

“Every mathematician knows it is impossible to understand any elementary course in thermodynamics.”

— Vladimir Arnold, “Contact Geometry: the Geometrical Method of Gibbs’ Thermodynamics” (1989) [15]

“All kinds of private metaphysics and theology have grown like weeds in the garden of thermodynamics.”

See also
● Entropy quotes
● Human thermodynamics quotes

References
2. (a) Lewis, Gilbert & Randall, Merle. (1923). Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances, (pg. x). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.
(b) Cavazox-Gaither A.E. (2002). Chemically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations, (section: “Thermodynamics”, pg. 427-28). CRC Press.
3. Eddington, Arthur S. (1928). The Nature of the Physical World, (pg. 74). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. (a) Schlipp, P.A. (1973). Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. La Salle, IL.: Open Court Publishing.
(b) Einstein, Albert. (author), Paul Arthur, Schilpp (editor). (1979). Autobiographical Notes. A Centennial Edition, (p. 31). Open Court Publishing Company.
(c) As quoted by Don Howard, John Stachel. Einstein: The Formative Years, 1879-1909 (Einstein Studies, vol. 8). Birkhäuser Boston. 2000. (p. 1).
5. (a) Henderson, Lawrence J. (1917). The Order of Nature: An Essay (pg. 126). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
(b) Bynum W.F. and Porter, Roy. (2005). Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations, (pg. 275:6). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. (a) Caillois, Roger. (1976). Coherences Aventureuses. Paris: Gallimard.
(b) Thaxton, Charles B., Bradley, Walter L., Olsen, Roger L. (1992). The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, (ch. 7: “Thermodynamics of Living Systems”, ch. 8: “Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life”). Lewis and Stanley.
(c) Bushev, Michael. (1994). Synergetics: Chaos, Order, Self-organization, (pg. 130). World Scientific.
(d) Prigogine Ilya, (1981). From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co.
7. The Two Cultures - Wikipedia.
8. Overbye, Dennis. (2001). Einstein in Love (pg. 82). Penguin.
9. (a) Wilson, Edward O. (1978). On Human Nature (pg. 207). Harvard University Press.
(b) Dormer, Peter. (1997). The Culture of Craft (pg. 104). Manchester University Press.
(c) Thermodynamics (T-Shirts, shirts, and bumper stickers) – CafePress.com.
10. Richardson, Robert D. (2007). William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism: a Biography (pgs. 518-19). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
11. Angrist, Stanley W. and Helper, Loren G. (1967). Order and Chaos – Laws of Energy and Entropy (pg. 215). New York: Basic Books.
12. Fernández-Galiano, Luis and Carino, Gina (translator) (2000). Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy (pg. 49). MIT Press.
13. Rock, Peter. (2003). Chemical Thermodynamics (pg. 7). University Science Books.
14. Prigogine, Ilya. (1984). Order Out of Chaos – Man’s New Dialogue with Nature (pg. 128). New York: Bantam Books.
15. Arnold, Vladimir I. (1989). “Contact Geometry: the Geometrical Method of Gibbs’ Thermodynamics”, pgs. 163-80; in Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium: Yale University, May 15-17. AMS Bookstore.
16. (a) Hiebert, Erwin N. (1966). “The Uses and Abuses of Thermodynamics in Religion”, Daedalus, 95: 1046-80 (quote: pg. 1075).
(b) Hiebert, Erwin N. (1986). “Modern Physics and Christian Faith” (pgs. 424-47) in: God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science (pg. 427), by: Lindberg, David C. and Numbers, Ronald L. University of California Press.
17. Bridgman, Peter W. (1941). The Nature of Thermodynamics (pg. 116). New York: Harper Torchbooks.

External links
● Thermodynamics Quotations – Today in Science History.
● Heat quotes – TodayInSci.com