John Herschel Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations.

  John Herschel

  Science, Mind, Enquiry

  "A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy". Book by John Herschel, 1830.

• Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the numerical or quantitative results of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after subducting and allowing for all that would result from the strict application of known principles.

  John Herschel

  Knowledge, Science, Discovery

  Outlines of Astronomy (p. 548)

• According to this view of the matter, there is nothing casual in the formation of Metamorphic Rocks. All strata, once buried deep enough, (and due TIME allowed!!!) must assume that state,-none can escape. All records of former worlds must ultimately perish.

  John Herschel

  Science, Rocks, Views

• Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn.

  John Herschel

  Knowledge, Science, Students

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1869). “Outlines of Astronomy”, p.17

• First, In showing in how to avoid attempting impossibilities. Second, In securing us from important mistakes in attempting what is, in itself possible, by means either inadequate or actually opposed to the end in view. Thirdly, In enabling us to accomplish our ends in the easiest, shortest, most economical, and most effectual manner. Fourth, In inducing us to attempt, and enabling us to accomplish, object which, but for such knowledge, we should never have thought of understanding.
  On the ways that a knowledge of the order of nature can be of use.

  John Herschel

  Mistake, Knowledge, Mean

• All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths come from on high, and contained in the sacred writings.

  John Herschel

  Truth, Writing, Science

• [When nature appears complicated:] The moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part of its plan, we never fail to recognize that sublime simplicity on which the mind rests satisfied that it has attained the truth.

  John Herschel

  Nature, Truth, Science

• Speculations apparently the most unprofitable have almost invariably been those from which the greatest practical applications have emanated.

  John Herschel

  Science, Discovery, Speculation

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel, William Whewell, George Henry Lewes, Hermann von Helmholz, James Clerk Maxwell (1996). “The Origins of Modern Philosophy of Science, 1830-1914: Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”

• It can hardly be pressed forcibly enough on the attention of the student of nature, that there is scarcely any natural phenomenon which can be fully and completely explained, in all its circumstances, without a union of several, perhaps of all, the sciences.

  John Herschel

  Nature, Science, Attention

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1851). “Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”, p.174

• The end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century are remarkable for the small amount of scientific movement going on in this country, especially in its more exact departments. Mathematics were at the last gasp, and astronomy nearly so; I mean in those members of its frame which depend upon precise measurement and systematic calculation. The chilling torpor of routine had begun to spread itself over all those branches of Science which wanted the excitement of experimental research.

  John Herschel

  Country, Mean, Science

  "Memoir of Francis Baily".

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