James Clerk Maxwell Quotes

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• I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Philosophical, Found, Most Philosophical

  131 Copy quote

• Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Real, Ignorance, Conscious

  "Dr. Stuart Firestein's Scientific Method Speech on Question Propagation" by Alyson Wyers, www.trendhunter.com. October 27, 2013.

  83 Copy quote

• In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we begin to trace the development of ideas that it becomes fascinating.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Discovery, Ideas

  129 Copy quote

• The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Law, Mind, Matter

  James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.383, CUP Archive

  73 Copy quote

• The true Logic for this world is the Calculus of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, World, Logic

  "The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862".

  89 Copy quote

• The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted instruments, to which he is apt to trust and which he dares not take to pieces.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Home, Use, Pieces

  James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, C. W. Francis Everitt (1986). “Maxwell on Molecules and Gases”, p.113, MIT Press

  61 Copy quote

• Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Thinking, Self, Atheism

  James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.376, Courier Corporation

  44 Copy quote

• In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Data, Progress, Branches

  James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.209, CUP Archive

  73 Copy quote

• I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Christian, Men, Thinking

  James Clerk Maxwell (2002). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell:”, p.188, Cambridge University Press

  70 Copy quote

• All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Education, Math, Numbers

  "The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell".

  49 Copy quote

• It is a universal condition of the enjoyable that the mind must believe in the existence of a law, and yet have a mystery to move about in.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Believe, Moving, Law

  James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.248, CUP Archive

  11 Copy quote

• Faraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of electromagnetism.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Father, Electromagnetism

  James Clerk Maxwell (1890). “Scientific Papers”

  58 Copy quote

• At quite uncertain times and places,
  The atoms left their heavenly path,
  And by fortuitous embraces,
  Engendered all that being hath.
  And though they seem to cling together,
  And form 'associations' here,
  Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether,
  And through the depths of space career.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Careers, Space

  James Clerk Maxwell, “Molecular Evolution”

  54 Copy quote

• The chief philosophical value of physics is that it gives the mind something distinct to lay hold of, which, if you don't, Nature at once tells you you are wrong.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Philosophical, Giving, Mind

  38 Copy quote

• The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Sea, Law, Water

  James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush (1995). “Maxwell on Heat and Statistical Mechanics: On "avoiding All Personal Enquiries" of Molecules”, p.205, Lehigh University Press

  13 Copy quote

• I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Men, Wicked, Example

  James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.221, CUP Archive

  33 Copy quote

• Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Ideas, May, Language

  James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.328, Courier Corporation

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• It was a great step in science when men became convinced that, in order to understand the nature of things, they must begin by asking, not whether a thing is good or bad, noxious or beneficial, but of what kind it is? And how much is there of it? Quality and Quantity were then first recognised as the primary features to be observed in scientific inquiry.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Men, Discovery

  James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.217, Courier Corporation

  19 Copy quote

• I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Gun, Light

  James Clerk Maxwell (1995). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell:”, p.203, CUP Archive

  8 Copy quote

• Gin a body meet a body
  Flyin' through the air,
  Gin a body hit a body,
  Will it fly? and where?

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Air, Body

  James Clerk Maxwell, “In Memory Of Edward Wilson, Who Repented Of What Was In His Mind To Write After Section”

  37 Copy quote

• It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Students, Physics

  James Clerk Maxwell (1954). “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism”, p.11, Courier Corporation

  40 Copy quote

• In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other ... and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis, I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Thinking, Details

  13 Copy quote

• What, then, is light according to the electromagnetic theory? It consists of alternate and opposite rapidly recurring transverse magnetic disturbances, accompanied with electric displacements, the direction of the electric displacement being at the right angles to the magnetic disturbance, and both at right angles to the direction of the ray.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Science, Light, Opposites

  James Clerk Maxwell (1995). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell:”, p.195, CUP Archive

  18 Copy quote

• Ampere was the Newton of Electricity.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Newton, Electricity

  13 Copy quote

• We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject [of electricity] has been greatly developed by writers who express themselves in terms of the 'Two Fluids' theory. Their results, however, have been deduced entirely from data which can be proved by experiment, and which must therefore be true, whether we adopt the theory of two fluids or not. The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Data, Two, Doctrine

  James Clerk Maxwell (1873). “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism”, p.38

  7 Copy quote

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