Geology Quotes

• We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Morning, Philosophy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2366, Delphi Classics

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• Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.

  Will Durant

  Change, Civilization, Existence

  "What is Civilization?". Ladies' Home Journal, Volume LXIII, January 1946.

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• No Geologist worth anything is permanently bound to a desk or laboratory, but the charming notion that true science can only be based on unbiased observation of nature in the raw is mythology. Creative work, in geology and anywhere else, is interaction and synthesis: half-baked ideas from a bar room, rocks in the field, chains of thought from lonely walks, numbers squeezed from rocks in a laboratory, numbers from a calculator riveted to a desk, fancy equipment usually malfunctioning on expensive ships, cheap equipment in the human cranium, arguments before a road cut.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Lonely, Creativity, Science

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• 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

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• We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Sea, Earthquakes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1859). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: The conduct of life”, p.262

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• As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Past, Order, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.90, Xist Publishing

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• Geology gives us a key to the patience of God.

  J. G. Holland

  God, Science, Keys

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• [In geology,] As in history, the material in hand remains silent if no questions are asked. The nature of these questions depends on the "school" to which the geologist belongs and on the objectivity of his investigations. Hans Cloos called this way of interrogation "the dialogue with the earth," "das Gesprach mit der Erde."

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  School, Science, Objectivity

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• Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy.

  John Herschel

  Next, Astronomy, Treats

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1851). “Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”, p.287

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• Geology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it enquires into the causes of these changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the surface and external structure of our planet.

  Charles Lyell

  Taken, Science, Kingdoms

  Sir Charles Lyell, Gérard Paul Deshayes (1830). “Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation”, p.1

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• The geologist takes up the history of the earth at the point where the archaeologist leaves it, and carries it further back into remote antiquity.

  Bal Gangadhar Tilak

  Earth, Archaeologists, Geologist

  Bal Gangadhar Tilak (2011). “The Arctic Home in the Vedas”, p.21, Arktos

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• The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.

  James Hutton

  Science, Past, History

  "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh". Book published by Royal Society of Edinburgh, "Theory of the Earth", 1785.

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• Geology differs from physics, chemistry, and biology in that the possibilities for experiment are limited.

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  Science, Differences, Chemistry

  "The Scientific Character of Geology". The Journal of Geology, Vol. 69, No. 4, pp. 453-463, July 1961.

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• The subjective element in geological studies accounts for two characteristic types that can be distinguished among geologists. One considering geology as a creative art, the other regarding geology as an exact science.

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  Art, Science, Two

  "Methods of Prospection for Chromite" by Robert Woodtli, (p. 80), 1964.

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• Before Girls on Ice, mountains were just mountains. Valleys were just valleys. Now when I see them they're full of questions and stories. Girls on Ice encouraged a new kind of curiosity in me about things I would have thought boring before. Now I'm considering to pursue Geology after high school. Girls on Ice opened a door to new thoughts and interests for me to consider for my future.

  Chloe Smith

  Girl, School, Doors

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• We can only penetrate the rind of the earth.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Science, Earth, Penetrate

  Georges Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon (1817). “A Natural History, General and Particular: Containing the History and Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, the Brute Creation, Vegetables, Minerals, Etc. Etc”, p.6

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• [Vestiges begins] from principles which are at variance with all sober inductive truth. The sober facts of geology shuffled, so as to play a rogue's game; phrenology (that sinkhole of human folly and prating coxcombry); spontaneous generation; transmutation of species; and I know not what; all to be swallowed, without tasting and trying, like so much horse-physic!! Gross credulity and rank infidelity joined in unlawful marriage, and breeding a deformed progeny of unnatural conclusions!

  Adam Sedgwick

  Horse, Science, Games

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• We cannot take one step in geology without drawing upon the fathomless stores of by-gone time.

  Adam Sedgwick

  Time, Science, Drawing

  William Wordsworth, Adam Sedgwick (1853). “A complete guide to the Lakes, comprising minute directions for the tourist, with mr. Wordsworth's Description of the scenery of the country, &c. and Three letters upon the geology of the Lake district, by prof. Sedgwick”, p.183

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• History and geology show what an eyeblink it's been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.

  David Brin

  Culture, Currents, Rate

  David Brin (2009). “Earth”, p.520, Spectra

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• As geology is essentially a historical science, the working method of the geologist resembles that of the historian. This makes the personality of the geologist of essential importance in the way he analyzes the past.

  Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

  Science, Past, Personality

  "The Scientific Character of Geology" by Reinout Willem van Bemmelen, The Journal of Geology, Vol. 69, No. 4 (pp. 453-463), July 1961.

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• Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.

  Octavia Butler

  Fun, Writing, Research

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• [Geology] opens up such wide intellectual vistas and supplies a more perfectly unified and more comprehensive conception of nature than any other science.

  Rosa Luxemburg

  Science, Intellectual, Vistas

  Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Le Blanc (1999). “Rosa Luxemburg: reflections and writings”

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• I majored in geology in college but have majored in Herbert Hoover ever since.

  Lou Henry Hoover

  College, Hoover

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• The Secret Doctrine is the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology.

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Teaching, Men, Secret

  H.P. Blavatsky (2016). “The Secret Doctrine”, p.1206, Penguin

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• So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

  Daniel Yergin

  Technology, Development, Politics

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