Louis Agassiz Quotes About Science

Quotes about: Science

• 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

• 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

• 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”

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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".

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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.

• 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

• 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”

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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