Louis Agassiz Quotes

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• I will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God-a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of human knowledge-adds a wonderful stimulus to the man who attempts to penetrate into the regions of the unknown.

  Louis Agassiz

  God, Knowledge, Science

  50 Copy quote

• Nature brings us back to absolute truth whenever we wander.

  Louis Agassiz

  Wander, Absolute Truth, Absolutes

  12 Copy quote

• Study nature not books

  Louis Agassiz

  Inspirational, Life, Book

  20 Copy quote

• I cannot afford to waste my time making money

  Louis Agassiz

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  19 Copy quote

• It is the job of prophets and scientists alike to proclaim the glories of God.

  Louis Agassiz

  God, Jobs, Glory

  10 Copy quote

• The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world.

  Louis Agassiz

  Life, Truth, Woven

  Louis Agassiz (1870). “Methods of Study in Natural History”, p.42

  13 Copy quote

• The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind.

  Louis Agassiz

  Mind, Study, Ecology

  17 Copy quote

• As long as men inquire, they will find opportunities to know more upon these topics than those who have gone before them, so inexhaustibly rich is nature in the innermost diversity of her treasures of beauty, order and intelligence.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Opportunity, Men

  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.139

  18 Copy quote

• The world is the geologist's great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand.

  Louis Agassiz

  Children, Science, Hands

  Louis Agassiz (1873). “Geological Sketches”, p.11

  41 Copy quote

• Every great scientific truth goes through three states: first, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it.

  Louis Agassiz

  Truth, People, Three

  10 Copy quote

• The eye of the trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he lived; for there is nothing in nature without a purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made to receive the light, there must have been light to enter it.

  Louis Agassiz

  Beach, Nature, Eye

  "Geological Sketches". Book by Louis Agassiz, ch. 2 (pp. 31 - 32), 1870.

  12 Copy quote

• I sometimes hear preachers speak of the sad condition of men who live without God in the world, but a scientist who lives without God in the world seems to me worse off than ordinary men.

  Louis Agassiz

  Life, God, Science

  8 Copy quote

• The surface of the earth is not simply a stage on which the thousands of present and past inhabitants played their parts in turn. There are much more intimate relations between the earth and the living organisms which populated it, and it may even be demonstrated that the earth was developed because of them.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Past, Earth

  16 Copy quote

• Facts are the words of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations, and recognize the thought that binds them together.

  Louis Agassiz

  Together, May, Littles

  Louis Agassiz (1870). “Methods of Study in Natural History”, p.202

  4 Copy quote

• Today our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and falsity of their beliefs.

  Louis Agassiz

  Simple, Reality, Thinking

  12 Copy quote

• Philosophers and theologians have yet to learn that a physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle. Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Principles, Demand

  5 Copy quote

• Lay aside all conceit Learn to read the book of Nature for yourself. Those who have succeeded best have followed for years some slim thread which once in a while has broadened out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search.

  Louis Agassiz

  Success, Nature, Book

  9 Copy quote

• The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.

  Louis Agassiz

  Tests, Facts, Form

  Louis Agassiz (1873). “Geological Sketches”, p.234

  4 Copy quote

• The resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being endowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Men, Order

  Louis Agassiz (1863). “Methods of Study in Natural History”, p.4, Ayer Company Pub

  4 Copy quote

• In 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Mass., before a Teachers' Institute conducted by Horace Mann. My subject was grasshoppers. I passed around a large jar of these insects, and made every teacher take one and hold it while I was speaking. If any one dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it up. This was at that time a great innovation, and excited much laughter and derision. There can be no true progress in the teaching of natural science until such methods become general.

  Louis Agassiz

  Teacher, Laughter, Teaching

  9 Copy quote

• There is no part of the country where in the summer you cannot get a sufficient supply of the best specimens. Teach your children to bring them in for themselves. Take your text from the brooks, not from the booksellers.

  Louis Agassiz

  Summer, Country, Children

  4 Copy quote

• I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,-this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a like nature.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Science, Eggs

  Louis Agassiz (2003). “Agassiz on Evolution: Methods of study in natural history”

  11 Copy quote

• I now never make the preparations for penetrating into some small province of nature hitherto undiscovered without breathing a prayer to the Being who hides His secrets from me only to allure me graciously on to the unfolding of them.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Prayer, Science

  7 Copy quote

• A laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where nothing profane should be tolerated. I feel less agony at improprieties in churches than in a scientific laboratory.

  Louis Agassiz

  Science, Agony, Church

  "Discovery: or, The spirit and service of science". Book by Sir Richard Gregory, 1st Baronet, p. 43, 1916.

  7 Copy quote

• I may say that here, as in most cases where the operations of nature interfere with the designs of man, it is not by a direct intervention on our part that we may remedy the difficulties, but rather by a precise knowledge of their causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences.

  Louis Agassiz

  Ocean, Men, Evil

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

  4 Copy quote

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