Louis Agassiz Quotes - Page 2

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• The office of science is not to record possibilities; but to ascertain what nature does ... As far as Darwinism deals with mere arguments of possibilities or even probabilities, without a basis of fact, it departs from the true scientific method and injures science, as most of the devotees of the new ism have already done.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Science, Office

  13 Copy quote

• In-depth studies have an influence on general ideas, whereas theories, in turn, in order to maintain themselves, push their spectators to search for new evidence. The mind's activity that is maintained by the debates about these works, is probably the source of the greatest joys given to man to experience on Earth.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Men, Order

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• It must be for truth's sake, and not for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, that the scientific man studies Nature. The application of science to the useful arts requires other abilities, other qualities, other tools than his; and therefore I say that the man of science who follows his studies into their practical application is false to his calling. The practical man stands ever ready to take up the work where the scientific man leaves it, and adapt it to the material wants and uses of daily life.

  Louis Agassiz

  Art, Nature, Science

  6 Copy quote

• A man cannot be professor of zoölogy on one day and of chemistry on the next, and do good work in both. As in a concert all are musicians,-one plays one instrument, and one another, but none all in perfection.

  Louis Agassiz

  Hard Work, Science, Men

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• The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant that there is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realise.

  Louis Agassiz

  Running, Possibility, Existence

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• It is better to have a few forms well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the first year's work, than to have two thousand dollars' worth of shells and corals bought from a curiosity-shop. The dozen animals would be your own.

  Louis Agassiz

  Teaching, Knowledge, Science

  7 Copy quote

• Facts are stupid until brought into connection with some general law.

  Louis Agassiz

  Stupid, Law, Connections

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• One naturally asks, what was the use of this great engine set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God's great plough.

  Louis Agassiz

  God, Science, Age

  Louis Agassiz (1876). “Geological Sketches”

  4 Copy quote

• In Europe I have been accused of taking my scientific ideas from the Church. In America I have been called a heretic, because I will not let my church-going friends pat me on the head.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Europe, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• The glacier was God's great plough . . . set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth?

  Louis Agassiz

  Work, Age, Ploughing

  Louis Agassiz (1876). “Geological Sketches”

  41 Copy quote

• Embryology furnishes, also, the best measure of true affinities existing between animals.

  Louis Agassiz

  Animal, Affinity, Classification

  Louis Agassiz (1859). “An Essay on Classification”, p.129

  4 Copy quote

• Select such subjects that your pupils cannot walk out without seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them provided with the specimens about which you speak. If you can find nothing better, take a house-fly or a cricket, and let each one hold a specimen and examine it as you talk.

  Louis Agassiz

  Teaching, Science, House

  4 Copy quote

• The theory [of evolution] is a scientific mistake.

  Louis Agassiz

  Mistake, Theory Of Evolution, Evolution

  7 Copy quote

• The long summer was over. For ages a tropical climate had prevailed over a great part of the earth, and animals whose home is now beneath the Equator roamed over the world from the far South to the very borders of the Arctics ... But their reign was over. A sudden intense winter, that was also to last for ages, fell upon our globe.

  Louis Agassiz

  Summer, Home, Winter

  "Geological Sketches".

  7 Copy quote

• The study of Nature is intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with Nature. At her lowest her works are the works of the highest powers, the highest something in the universe, in whichever way we look at it... This is the charm of Study from Nature itself; she brings us back to absolute truth wherever we wander.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Hard Work, Science

  5 Copy quote

• America, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising here and there above the sea, America already stretched an unbroken line of land from Nova Scotia to the Far West.

  Louis Agassiz

  Ocean, Science, Islands

  Louis Agassiz (1873). “Geological Sketches”, p.1

  5 Copy quote

• But unless some great revolution in nature modifies the present relative level between land and sea, it may safely be maintained that the present outer reef is the final southern boundary of the North American continent.

  Louis Agassiz

  Ocean, Sea, Land

  Louis Agassiz (1882). “Report on the Florida Reefs”

  4 Copy quote

• A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.

  Louis Agassiz

  Strong, Learning, Knowledge

  8 Copy quote

• Branches or types are characterized by the plan of their structure,
  Classes, by the manner in which that plan is executed, as far as ways and means are concerned,
  Orders, by the degrees of complication of that structure,
  Families, by their form, as far as determined by structure,
  Genera, by the details of the execution in special parts, and
  Species, by the relations of individuals to one another and to the world in which they live, as well as by the proportions of their parts, their ornamentation, etc.

  Louis Agassiz

  Mean, Order, Class

  Louis Agassiz (1857). “Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America: pt. I. Essay on classification. pt. II. North American Testudinata. 1857”, p.170

  4 Copy quote

• When chemists have brought their knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time going on in such vast proportions,-when physicists study the laws of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the present,-when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and physicists, and vice versa,-then we shall learn more of the changes the world has undergone than is possible now that they are separately studied.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Past, Clouds

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• The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge.

  Louis Agassiz

  Believe, Knowledge, Science

  "Evolution and Permanence of Type". Atlantic Monthly, January 1874.

  7 Copy quote

• I hail with joy- for I am a temperance man and a friend of temperance-I hail with joy the efforts that are being made to raise wine in the country. I believe that when you have everywhere cheap, pure, unadulterated wine, you will no longer have need for either prohibitory or license laws.

  Louis Agassiz

  Country, Believe, Wine

  15 Copy quote

• You cannot do without one specialty. You must have some base-line to measure the work and attainments of others. For a general view of the subject, study the history of the sciences. Broad knowledge of all Nature has been the possession of no naturalist except Humboldt, and general relations constituted his specialty.

  Louis Agassiz

  Hard Work, Knowledge, Science

  4 Copy quote

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