TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index B > Category: Breathing

Breathing Quotes (23 quotes)

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,” and is as necessary to life as the act of breathing.
Quoted, without citation, in front matter to T. A. Edison Foundation, Lewis Howard Latimer: A Black Inventor: a Biography and Related Experiments You Can Do (1973). If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Spring (140)

[Luis] Alvarez could no more refrain from invention than he could from breathing. In the midst of an illness so severe as to incapacitate him for most of a summer, he amused himself by attempting to build a better detector of gallstones.
In 'Luie's Gadgets: A Profile of Luis Alvarez', The American Scholar (Winter 1992), 61, No. 1, 90.
Science quotes on:  |  Luis W. Alvarez (24)  |  Amuse (2)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Better (493)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Build (211)  |  Detector (4)  |  Himself (461)  |  Illness (35)  |  Incapacitate (2)  |  Invention (400)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Refrain (9)  |  Severe (17)  |  Summer (56)

Ode to The Amoeba
Recall from Time's abysmal chasm
That piece of primal protoplasm
The First Amoeba, strangely splendid,
From whom we're all of us descended.
That First Amoeba, weirdly clever,
Exists today and shall forever,
Because he reproduced by fission;
He split himself, and each division
And subdivision deemed it fitting
To keep on splitting, splitting, splitting;
So, whatsoe'er their billions be,
All, all amoebas still are he.
Zoologists discern his features
In every sort of breathing creatures,
Since all of every living species,
No matter how their breed increases
Or how their ranks have been recruited,
From him alone were evoluted.
King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba
And Hoover sprang from that amoeba;
Columbus, Shakespeare, Darwin, Shelley
Derived from that same bit of jelly.
So famed is he and well-connected,
His statue ought to be erected,
For you and I and William Beebe
Are undeniably amoebae!
(1922). Collected in Gaily the Troubadour (1936), 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Alone (324)  |  Amoeba (21)  |  William Beebe (5)  |  Billion (104)  |  Breed (26)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Clever (41)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Connect (126)  |  Creature (242)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Descend (49)  |  Discern (35)  |  Division (67)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exist (458)  |  First (1302)  |  Fission (10)  |  Forever (111)  |  Himself (461)  |  Herbert Hoover (13)  |  Increase (225)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  Ode (3)  |  Poem (104)  |  Primal (5)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Rank (69)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |   Mary Shelley (9)  |  Species (435)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Split (15)  |  Statue (17)  |  Still (614)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Zoologist (12)

To the Memory of Fourier
Fourier! with solemn and profound delight,
Joy born of awe, but kindling momently
To an intense and thrilling ecstacy,
I gaze upon thy glory and grow bright:
As if irradiate with beholden light;
As if the immortal that remains of thee
Attuned me to thy spirit’s harmony,
Breathing serene resolve and tranquil might.
Revealed appear thy silent thoughts of youth,
As if to consciousness, and all that view
Prophetic, of the heritage of truth
To thy majestic years of manhood due:
Darkness and error fleeing far away,
And the pure mind enthroned in perfect day.
In R. Graves, Life of W. R. Hamilton (1882), Vol. l, 696.
Science quotes on:  |  Appear (122)  |  Attune (2)  |  Awe (43)  |  Bear (162)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Bright (81)  |  Consciousness (132)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Delight (111)  |  Due (143)  |  Error (339)  |  Flee (9)  |  Fourier (5)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Glory (66)  |  Grow (247)  |  Harmony (105)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Intense (22)  |  Joy (117)  |  Kindle (9)  |  Light (635)  |  Majestic (17)  |  Manhood (3)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Profound (105)  |  Prophetic (4)  |  Pure (299)  |  Remain (355)  |  Resolve (43)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Revealed (59)  |  Serene (5)  |  Silent (31)  |  Solemn (20)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thought (995)  |  Thrill (26)  |  Tranquil (2)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)  |  Year (963)  |  Youth (109)

As an undergraduate who believed himself destined to be a mathematician I happened upon “Man and Superman” and as I read it at a library table I felt like Saul of Tarsus when the light broke. “If literature,” I said to myself, “can be like this then literature is the stuff for me.” And to this day I never see a differential equation written out without breathing a prayer of thanks.
In 'An Open Letter to George Bernard Shaw', Saturday Review (21 Jul 1956), 39, 12. ollected in If You Don't Mind My Saying So: Essays on Man and Nature (1964), 391.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Destined (42)  |  Differential Equation (18)  |  Equation (138)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Himself (461)  |  Library (53)  |  Light (635)  |  Literature (116)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Read (308)  |  See (1094)  |  Superman (4)  |  Table (105)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Undergraduate (17)

Given one has before oneself a strong, healthy, youth rich in spirited blood and a powerless, weak, cachectic old man scarcely capable of breathing. If now the physician wishes to practise the rejuvenating art on the latter, he should make silver tubes which fit into each other: open then the artery of the healthy person and introduce one of the tubes into it and fasten it into the artery; thereupon he opens also the artery of the ill person...
[First detailed description of blood transfusion (1615)]
In N.S.R. Maluf, 'History of Blood Transfusion', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (1954), 9, No. 1, 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artery (10)  |  Blood (144)  |  Capable (174)  |  Detail (150)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Man (2252)  |  Old (499)  |  Oneself (33)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Person (366)  |  Physician (284)  |  Scarcely (75)  |  Silver (49)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Strong (182)  |  Transfusion (2)  |  Weak (73)  |  Youth (109)

Go into a room where the shutters are always shut (in a sick-room or a bed-room there should never be shutters shut), and though the room be uninhabited—though the air has never been polluted by the breathing of human beings, you will observe a close, musty smell of corrupt air—of air unpurified by the effect of the sun's rays.
Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not (1860), 120.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Being (1276)  |  Effect (414)  |  Health (210)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Light (635)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observe (179)  |  Ray (115)  |  Shut (41)  |  Sick (83)  |  Smell (29)  |  Sun (407)  |  Will (2350)

He that in ye mine of knowledge deepest diggeth, hath, like every other miner, ye least breathing time, and must sometimes at least come to terr. alt. for air.
[Explaining how he writes a letter as break from his study.]
Letter to Dr. Law (15 Dec 1716) as quoted in Norman Lockyer, (ed.), Nature (25 May 1881), 24, 39. The source refers to it as an unpublished letter.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Break (109)  |  Deepest (4)  |  Hath (2)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Least (75)  |  Letter (117)  |  Mine (78)  |  Miner (9)  |  Must (1525)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Study (701)  |  Time (1911)  |  Write (250)

I have sometimes experienced from nitrous oxide, sensations similar to no others, and they have consequently been indescribable. This has been likewise often the case with other persons. Of two paralytic patients who were asked what they felt after breathing nitrous oxide, the first answered, “I do not know how, but very queer.” The second said, “I felt like the sound of a harp.”
Referring to his investigation of the effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
Science quotes on:  |  Answer (389)  |  Ask (420)  |  Do (1905)  |  Feeling (259)  |  First (1302)  |  Harp (4)  |  Know (1538)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Person (366)  |  Queer (9)  |  Sensation (60)  |  Sound (187)  |  Two (936)

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.
As quoted in E.P. Whipple, 'Recollections of Agassiz', in Henry Mills Alden (ed.), Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June 1879), 59, 103.
Science quotes on:  |  Allure (4)  |  Being (1276)  |  Graciously (2)  |  Hide (70)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Penetrating (3)  |  Prayer (30)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Province (37)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Secret (216)  |  Small (489)  |  Undiscovered (15)  |  Unfolding (16)

In the infancy of physical science, it was hoped that some discovery might be made that would enable us to emancipate ourselves from the bondage of gravity, and, at least, pay a visit to our neighbour the moon. The poor attempts of the aeronaut have shewn the hopelessness of the enterprise. The success of his achievement depends on the buoyant power of the atmosphere, but the atmosphere extends only a few miles above the earth, and its action cannot reach beyond its own limits. The only machine, independent of the atmosphere, we can conceive of, would be one on the principle of the rocket. The rocket rises in the air, not from the resistance offered by the atmosphere to its fiery stream, but from the internal reaction. The velocity would, indeed, be greater in a vacuum than in the atmosphere, and could we dispense with the comfort of breathing air, we might, with such a machine, transcend the boundaries of our globe, and visit other orbs.
God's Glory in the Heavens (1862, 3rd Ed. 1867) 3-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Action (342)  |  Air (366)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Bondage (6)  |  Buoyancy (7)  |  Buoyant (6)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Depend (238)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emancipate (2)  |  Enable (122)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hopelessness (6)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Internal (69)  |  Limit (294)  |  Machine (271)  |  Moon (252)  |  Offer (142)  |  Orb (20)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Poor (139)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rocket (52)  |  Space Travel (23)  |  Stream (83)  |  Success (327)  |  Transcend (27)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Velocity (51)

ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves;
First, forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
Thus the tall Oak, the giant of the wood,
Which bears Britannia's thunders on the flood;
The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main,
The lordly Lion, monarch of the plain,
The Eagle soaring in the realms of air,
Whose eye undazzled drinks the solar glare,
Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
Of language, reason, and reflection proud,
With brow erect, who scorns this earthy sod,
And styles himself the image of his God;
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
An embryon point, or microscopic ens!
The Temple of Nature (1803), canto 1, lines 295-314, pages 26-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Countless (39)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eagle (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flood (52)  |  Form (976)  |  Generation (256)  |  Giant (73)  |  Glass (94)  |  God (776)  |  Himself (461)  |  Image (97)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lion (23)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Microscopic (27)  |  Minute (129)  |  Monster (33)  |  Move (223)  |  Mud (26)  |  New (1273)  |  Oak (16)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Poem (104)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Realm (87)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reflection (93)  |  Rudiment (6)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scorn (12)  |  Sense (785)  |  Soaring (9)  |  Spring (140)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Unseen (23)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whale (45)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wood (97)

Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.
From the taped recordings of conversations during the Apollo 11 moon mission, as the Lunar Module touched down on the Moon surface. Charlie Duke was the designated Communicator at Mission Control, replying to: “The Eagle has landed.” Also in Bob Blaisdell (ed.), Essential Documents of American History: From Reconstruction to the Twenty-First Century (2016), Vol. 2, 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Blue (63)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Bunch (7)  |  Copy (34)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guy (5)  |  Lot (151)  |  Roger (3)  |  Thank (48)  |  Thanks (26)  |  Tranquility (8)  |  Turn (454)

That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show; (if only my breathing & some other etceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality).
Before ten years are over, the Devil’s in it if I haven’t sucked out some of the life-blood from the mysteries of this universe, in a way that no purely mortal lips or brains could do.
In letter to Charles Babbage (5 Jul 1843). British Library Additional Manuscripts, MSS 37192, folio 349. As quoted and cited in Dorothy Stein (ed.), 'This First Child of Mine', Ada: A Life and a Legacy (1985), 110.
Science quotes on:  |  Autobiography (58)  |  Blood (144)  |  Brain (281)  |  Devil (34)  |  Do (1905)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeblood (4)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mine (78)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progress (492)  |  Purely (111)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Suck (8)  |  Time (1911)  |  Universe (900)  |  Way (1214)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

The earth itself assures us it is a living entity. Deep below surface one can hear its slow pulse, feel its vibrant rhythm. The great breathing mountains expand and contract. The vast sage desert undulates with almost imperceptible tides like the oceans. From the very beginning, throughout all its cataclysmic upthrusts and deep sea submergences, the planet Earth seems to have maintained an ordered rhythm.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Assure (16)  |  Begin (275)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Below (26)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Contract (11)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deep Sea (10)  |  Desert (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Entity (37)  |  Expand (56)  |  Feel (371)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hear (144)  |  Imperceptible (8)  |  Live (650)  |  Living (492)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Order (638)  |  Planet (402)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Rhythm (21)  |  Sage (25)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seem (150)  |  Slow (108)  |  Surface (223)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Tide (37)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vibrant (2)

The Earth Speaks, clearly, distinctly, and, in many of the realms of Nature, loudly, to William Jennings Bryan, but he fails to hear a single sound. The earth speaks from the remotest periods in its wonderful life history in the Archaeozoic Age, when it reveals only a few tissues of its primitive plants. Fifty million years ago it begins to speak as “the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.” In successive eons of time the various kinds of animals leave their remains in the rocks which compose the deeper layers of the earth, and when the rocks are laid bare by wind, frost, and storm we find wondrous lines of ascent invariably following the principles of creative evolution, whereby the simpler and more lowly forms always precede the higher and more specialized forms.
The earth speaks not of a succession of distinct creations but of a continuous ascent, in which, as the millions of years roll by, increasing perfection of structure and beauty of form are found; out of the water-breathing fish arises the air-breathing amphibian; out of the land-living amphibian arises the land-living, air-breathing reptile, these two kinds of creeping things resembling each other closely. The earth speaks loudly and clearly of the ascent of the bird from one kind of reptile and of the mammal from another kind of reptile.
This is not perhaps the way Bryan would have made the animals, but this is the way God made them!
The Earth Speaks to Bryan (1925), 5-6. Osborn wrote this book in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial, where William Jennings Bryan spoke against the theory of evolution. They had previously been engaged in the controversy about the theory for several years. The title refers to a Biblical verse from the Book of Job (12:8), “Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Air (366)  |  Amphibian (7)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Bare (33)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Begin (275)  |  Bird (163)  |  Breath (61)  |  William Jennings Bryan (20)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creative (144)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eon (12)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fish (130)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Frost (15)  |  God (776)  |  Hear (144)  |  History (716)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Kind (564)  |  Land (131)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Million (124)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Period (200)  |  Plant (320)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Principle (530)  |  Realm (87)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rock (176)  |  Roll (41)  |  Single (365)  |  Sound (187)  |  Speak (240)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Storm (56)  |  Structure (365)  |  Succession (80)  |  Successive (73)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  Wondrous (22)  |  Year (963)

The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury. Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it.
Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (1775), Vol. 2, 102.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Become (821)  |  Common (447)  |  Different (595)  |  Ease (40)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fashion (34)  |  Fashionable (15)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Light (635)  |  Lung (37)  |  Luxury (21)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Myself (211)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Pure (299)  |  Purity (15)  |  Tell (344)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)

The overwhelming astonishment, the queerest structure we know about so far in the whole universe, the greatest of all cosmological scientific puzzles, confounding all our efforts to comprehend it, is the earth. We are only now beginning to appreciate how strange and splendid it is, how it catches the breath, the loveliest object afloat around the sun, enclosed in its own blue bubble of atmosphere, manufacturing and breathing its own oxygen, fixing its own nitrogen from the air into its own soil, generating its own weather at the surface of its rain forests, constructing its own carapace from living parts: chalk cliffs, coral reefs, old fossils from earlier forms of life now covered by layers of new life meshed together around the globe, Troy upon Troy.
In Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony (1984), 22-23.
Science quotes on:  |  Afloat (4)  |  Air (366)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Astonish (39)  |  Astonishment (30)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Blue (63)  |  Breath (61)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Catch (34)  |  Chalk (9)  |  Cliff (22)  |  Comprehend (44)  |  Confound (21)  |  Confounding (8)  |  Construct (129)  |  Coral Reef (15)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Cover (40)  |  Early (196)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enclose (2)  |  Fix (34)  |  Forest (161)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Generate (16)  |  Geology (240)  |  Globe (51)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Know (1538)  |  Layer (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Lovely (12)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mesh (3)  |  Meteorology (36)  |  New (1273)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Object (438)  |  Old (499)  |  Overwhelm (5)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Part (235)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Queer (9)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rain Forest (34)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendid (23)  |  Strange (160)  |  Structure (365)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Together (392)  |  Troy (3)  |  Universe (900)  |  Weather (49)  |  Whole (756)

There are, I believe, very few maxims in philosophy that have laid firmer hold upon the mind, than that air, meaning atmospherical air (free from various foreign matters, which were always supposed to be dissolved, and intermixed with it) is a simple elementary substance, indestructible, and unalterable, at least as much so as water is supposed to be. In the course of my enquiries, I was, however, soon satisfied that atmospherical air is not an unalterable thing; for that the phlogiston with which it becomes loaded from bodies burning in it, and animals breathing it, and various other chemical processes, so far alters and depraves it, as to render it altogether unfit for inflammation, respiration, and other purposes to which it is subservient; and I had discovered that agitation in water, the process of vegetation, and probably other natural processes, by taking out the superfluous phlogiston, restore it to its original purity.
'On Dephlogisticated Air, and the Constitution of the Atmosphere', in The Discovery of Oxygen, Part I, Experiments by Joseph Priestley 1775 (Alembic Club Reprint, 1894), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Agitation (10)  |  Air (366)  |  Alter (64)  |  Alteration (31)  |  Animal (651)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Burning (49)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Course (413)  |  Depravity (3)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Free (239)  |  Indestructible (12)  |  Inflammation (7)  |  Intermix (3)  |  Matter (821)  |  Maxim (19)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Phlogiston (9)  |  Process (439)  |  Purity (15)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Render (96)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Restoration (5)  |  Simple (426)  |  Soon (187)  |  Subservience (4)  |  Substance (253)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unfit (13)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Water (503)

These changes—the more rapid pulse, the deeper breathing, the increase of sugar in the blood, the secretion from the adrenal glands—were very diverse and seemed unrelated. Then, one wakeful night, after a considerable collection of these changes had been disclosed, the idea flashed through my mind that they could be nicely integrated if conceived as bodily preparations for supreme effort in flight or in fighting. Further investigation added to the collection and confirmed the general scheme suggested by the hunch.
The Way of an Investigator: A Scientist's Experiences in Medical Research (1945), 59-60.
Science quotes on:  |  Adrenaline (5)  |  Blood (144)  |  Change (639)  |  Collection (68)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Effort (243)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flight (101)  |  General (521)  |  Gland (14)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Idea (881)  |  Increase (225)  |  Integrated (10)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Pulse (22)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Supreme (73)  |  Through (846)

When air has been freshly and strongly tainted with putrefaction, so as to smell through the water, sprigs of mint have presently died, upon being put into it, their leaves turning black; but if they do not die presently, they thrive in a most surprizing manner. In no other circumstances have I ever seen vegetation so vigorous as in this kind of air, which is immediately fatal to animal life. Though these plants have been crouded in jars filled with this air, every leaf has been full of life; fresh shoots have branched out in various , and have grown much faster than other similiar plants, growing in the same exposure in common air.
This observation led me to conclude that plants, instead of affecting the air in the same manner with animal respiration, reverse the effects of breathing, and tend to keep the atmosphere sweet and wholesome, when it is become noxious, in consequence on animals living and breathing, or dying and putrefying in it.
In order to ascertain this, I took a quantity of air, made thoroughly noxious, by mice breathing and dying in it, and divided it into two parts; one of which I put into a phial immersed in water; and to the other (which was contained in a glass jar, standing in water) I put a sprig of mint. This was about the beginning of August 1771, and after eight or nine days, I found that a mouse lived perfectly well in that part of the air, in which the sprig of mint had grown, but died the moment it was put into the other part of the same original quantity of air; and which I had kept in the very same exposure, but without any plant growing in it.
'Observations on Different Kinds of Air', Philosophical Transactions (1772), 62, 193-4.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Ascertain (41)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Become (821)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Branch (155)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Common (447)  |  Conclude (66)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Death (406)  |  Divided (50)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Faster (50)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Glass (94)  |  Growing (99)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Jar (9)  |  Kind (564)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Mint (4)  |  Moment (260)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mouse (33)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Observation (593)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Respiration (14)  |  Reverse (33)  |  Smell (29)  |  Spring (140)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Taint (10)  |  Tainted (5)  |  Tend (124)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Thriving (2)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Various (205)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Water (503)  |  Wholesome (12)

Wherever you may find the inventor … you may give him wealth or you may take from him all that he has; and he will go on inventing. He can no more help inventing than he can help thinking or breathing. Inventors are born, not made.
(1891) As quoted in Stacy V. Jones, You Ought to Patent That (1962), 21.
Science quotes on:  |  Born (37)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Made (14)  |  More (2558)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Wherever (51)  |  Will (2350)

Your breathing. The beating of your heart. The expansion of your lungs. Your mere presence is all that is needed to establish your worth.
Quoted in Kim Lim (ed.), 1,001 Pearls of Spiritual Wisdom: Words to Enrich, Inspire, and Guide Your Life (2014), 247
Science quotes on:  |  Beat (42)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Establish (63)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Heart (243)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mere (86)  |  Need (320)  |  Presence (63)  |  Worth (172)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.