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: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index O > Category: Origin Of Life

Origin Of Life Quotes (37 quotes)

[Answering whether there was life in other worlds, he said there probably was.] After all, there's plenty of unearthly looking things moving around in my refrigerator, so there's always a chance of life springing up almost anywhere.
In Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe, Economist Book of Obituaries (2008), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Chance (244)  |  Life (1870)  |  Looking (191)  |  Other (2233)  |  Refrigerator (8)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unearthly (2)  |  World (1850)

Ex ovo omnia.
Everything out of the egg.
Inscribed on an egg, held by Zeus, in the title page illustration of Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (Disputations Touching the Generation of Animals, 1651). Harvey did not use that epigram elsewhere in his text, but explained the concept in longer sentence form. (See the quote on this webpage that begins: “We, however, maintain…”.) Later literature popularized the aphorism as omne vivum ex ovo, (all life from the egg), as it is now seen, for example, in Werner Müller, Developmental Biology (1996), 4. In the engraved illustration, the egg is a rather small detail, opened as two hollow half-shells, with various life forms emerging therefrom: human, reptile, mammal, fish, insect, and leaves. Compare the aphorism originated by François-Vincent Raspail, which was popularized by Rudolf Virchow, omnis cellula e cellula, (every living thing from an egg), and Louis Pasteur’s motto, Omne vivum e vivo, (every living thing from a living thing).
Science quotes on:  |  Egg (71)  |  Everything (489)

Omnis cellula e cellula
Every cell from a cell.
The doctrine he popularized (but did not originate). Given, for example, in the Latin form, in Lecture II 'Physiological Tissues' (17 Feb 1858) given to the Pathological Institute of Berlin, as translated by Frank Chance in Cellular Pathology (1860), 27-28. Also translated as: “Every cell stems from another cell”. Part of a longer quote on this page that begins: “Where a cell arises…”. Although popularized by Virchow, the aphorism was actually coined by François-Vincent Raspail.
Science quotes on:  |  Cell (146)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Motto (29)

A thing is either alive or it isn’t; there is nothing that is almost alive. There is but the remotest possibility of the origin of life by spontaneous generation, and every likelihood that Arrhenius is right when he dares to claim that life is a cosmic phenomenon, something that drifts between the spheres, like light, and like light transiently descends upon those fit to receive it.
In An Almanac for Moderns (1935), 393.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Svante Arrhenius (11)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Dare (55)  |  Descend (49)  |  Descent (30)  |  Drift (14)  |  Fit (139)  |  Generation (256)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Likelihood (10)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Receive (117)  |  Right (473)  |  Something (718)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Transient (13)

Almost in the beginning was curiosity.
In The Intelligent Man’s Guide to the Physical Sciences (1960, 1968), 1. Also in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Curiosity (138)

Although it be a known thing subscribed by all, that the foetus assumes its origin and birth from the male and female, and consequently that the egge is produced by the cock and henne, and the chicken out of the egge, yet neither the schools of physicians nor Aristotle’s discerning brain have disclosed the manner how the cock and its seed doth mint and coin the chicken out of the egge.
As quoted in John Arthur Thomson, The Science of Life: An Outline of the History of Biology and Its Recent Advances (1899), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Birth (154)  |  Brain (281)  |  Chicken (12)  |  Cock (6)  |  Coin (13)  |  Discerning (16)  |  Disclose (19)  |  Egg (71)  |  Female (50)  |  Foetus (5)  |  Hen (9)  |  Known (453)  |  Male (26)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mint (4)  |  Origin (250)  |  Physician (284)  |  Produce (117)  |  Produced (187)  |  School (227)  |  Seed (97)  |  Thing (1914)

An example of such emergent phenomena is the origin of life from non-living chemical compounds in the oldest, lifeless oceans of the earth. Here, aided by the radiation energy received from the sun, countless chemical materials were synthesized and accumulated in such a way that they constituted, as it were, a primeval “soup.” In this primeval soup, by infinite variations of lifeless growth and decay of substances during some billions of years, the way of life was ultimately reached, with its metabolism characterized by selective assimilation and dissimilation as end stations of a sluiced and canalized flow of free chemical energy.
In 'The Scientific Character of Geology', The Journal of Geology (Jul 1961), 69, No. 4, 458.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Aid (101)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Billion (104)  |  Canal (18)  |  Characterize (22)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Energy (3)  |  Compound (117)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Countless (39)  |  Decay (59)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Emergent (3)  |  End (603)  |  Energy (373)  |  Flow (89)  |  Free (239)  |  Growth (200)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Metabolism (15)  |  Non-Living (3)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Primeval (15)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reach (286)  |  Selective (21)  |  Sluice (2)  |  Soup (10)  |  Station (30)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sun (407)  |  Synthesis (58)  |  Ultimately (56)  |  Variation (93)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  Year (963)

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth’s surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against.
In Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (1981), 88.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Arm (82)  |  Available (80)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemical Reaction (17)  |  Chemical Reactions (13)  |  Condition (362)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Good (906)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Honest (53)  |  Idea (881)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Long (778)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Moment (260)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Origin (250)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sense (785)  |  Sequence (68)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Surface (223)  |  Time (1911)  |  Unravel (16)  |  Various (205)

As I show you this liquid, I too could tell you, 'I took my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I took it filled with that fecund jelly, that is, to use the language of science, full of the elements needed for the development of lower creatures. And then I waited, and I observed, and I asked questions of it, and I asked it to repeat the original act of creation for me; what a sight it would be! But it is silent! It has been silent for several years, ever since I began these experiments. Yes! And it is because I have kept away from it, and am keeping away from it to this moment, the only thing that it has not been given to man to produce, I have kept away from it the germs that are floating in the air, I have kept away from it life, for life is the germ, and the germ is life.'
Quoted in Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur, trans. Elborg Forster (1994), 169.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Air (366)  |  Ask (420)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creature (242)  |  Development (441)  |  Drop (77)  |  Element (322)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fecund (2)  |  Float (31)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gift (105)  |  Immensity (30)  |  Jelly (6)  |  Language (308)  |  Life (1870)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moment (260)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Production (190)  |  Question (649)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Show (353)  |  Sight (135)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Use (771)  |  Wait (66)  |  Water (503)  |  Year (963)

But the dreams about the modes of creation, enquiries whether our globe has been formed by the agency of fire or water, how many millions of years it has cost Vulcan or Neptune to produce what the fiat of the Creator would effect by a single act of will, is too idle to be worth a single hour of any man’s life.
Letter (2 May 1826) to Doctor John P. Emmet. Collected in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 7, 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Cost (94)  |  Creation (350)  |  Creator (97)  |  Dream (222)  |  Effect (414)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Fiat (7)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Globe (51)  |  Hour (192)  |  Idle (34)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Million (124)  |  Neptune (13)  |  Single (365)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

By firm immutable immortal laws Impress’d on Nature by the GREAT FIRST CAUSE,
Say, MUSE! how rose from elemental strife
Organic forms, and kindled into life;
How Love and Sympathy with potent charm
Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm;
Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains,
And bind Society in golden chains.
From 'Production of Life', The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes (1803), 3, Canto I, lines 1-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Alarm (19)  |  Allure (4)  |  Bind (26)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chain (51)  |  Charm (54)  |  Cold (115)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Firm (47)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heart (243)  |  Immortal (35)  |  Immutable (26)  |  Impress (66)  |  Impressed (39)  |  Kindled (2)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lift (57)  |  Love (328)  |  Muse (10)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organic (161)  |  Pain (144)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Poem (104)  |  Potent (15)  |  Rose (36)  |  Say (989)  |  Society (350)  |  Strife (9)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Warm (74)

Every living thing from a living thing.
Omne vivum ex vivo.
Associated with Pasteur, perhaps because he popularized this as a motto, but it actually predates his birth. The Latin form is found attributed to William Harvey, for example, in O. v Boltenstern, Die neuere Geschichte der Medicin (1802), 109. Also attributed to Francesco Redi in Andrew Wilson, for example, in 'Science—Culture for the Masses', Science and Poetry: And Other Essays (1888), 31. Attribution to Pasteur can be found, for example, in F.G. Nagasaka, Robert S. Cohen, Japanese Studies in the Philosophy of Science (1998), 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Thing (1914)

God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation… . Let the earth produce every kind of living creature. …” God said, “Let us make man in our image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts, and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth. “
Bible
(circa 725 B.C.)
Science quotes on:  |  Beast (58)  |  Bird (163)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Crawl (9)  |  Creature (242)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fish (130)  |  God (776)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Image (97)  |  Kind (564)  |  Likeness (18)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Master (182)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Reptile (33)  |  Sea (326)  |  Vegetation (24)  |  Wild (96)

However improbable we regard [the spontaneous origin of life],… it will almost certainly happen at least once…. The time… is of the order of two billion years.… Given so much time, the “impossible” becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One only has to wait: time itself performs the miracles.
In 'The Origin of Life', Scientific American (Aug 1954), 191, No. 2, 46. Note that the quoted time of 2 billion years is rejected as impossibly short by such authors as H. J. Morowitz, in Energy Flow in Biology (1968), 317.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Billion (104)  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Event (222)  |  Generation (256)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happening (59)  |  Impossibility (60)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Improbable (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Once (4)  |  Order (638)  |  Origin (250)  |  Perform (123)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Probability (135)  |  Regard (312)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Virtual (5)  |  Wait (66)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)  |  Years (5)

Human blood is a testament to life’s origin in the ocean: its chemical composition is nearly identical to that of sea-water.
In 'Ocean Policy and Reasonable Utopias', The Forum (Summer 1981), 16, No. 5, 900.
Science quotes on:  |  Blood (144)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Composition (86)  |  Human (1512)  |  Identical (55)  |  Life (1870)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Origin (250)  |  Sea (326)  |  Testament (4)  |  Water (503)

I intentionally left the question of the origin of life uncanvassed as being altogether ultra vires in the present state of our knowledge.
Letter (28 Mar 1882) to George C. Wallich—which Sir Gavin de Beer thinks was the last letter which Darwin is known to have dictated and signed before his death in 1882. In Gavin De Beer, 'Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin', Notes and Records of the Royal Society (1959), 14, As quoted and cited in Lim Ramon, Self And The Phenomenon Of Life: A Biologist Examines Life From Molecules To Humanity (2017), 12-66.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Intentional (4)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leave (138)  |  Life (1870)  |  Origin (250)  |  Present (630)  |  Question (649)  |  State (505)

It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.
Letter to J. D. Hooker, 29 March 1863. In F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin 1863 (1999), Vol. 11, 278.
Science quotes on:  |  Life (1870)  |  Matter (821)  |  Origin (250)  |  Present (630)  |  Rubbish (12)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)

It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction...
The Origin of Species (1909), 519-520.
Science quotes on:  |  Attraction (61)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Element (322)  |  Essence (85)  |  Explain (334)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Object (438)  |  Objection (34)  |  Origin (250)  |  Problem (731)  |  Result (700)  |  Unknown (195)

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living being are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sort of ammonia and phosphoric salts—light, heat, electricity present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present such matter would be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
Letter (1 Feb 1871) to Joseph Dalton Hooker. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1888), Vol. 3, 18.
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Being (1276)  |  Change (639)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Complex (202)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Condition (362)  |  Creature (242)  |  Devour (29)  |  Electricity (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Light (635)  |  Little (717)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Pond (17)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Protein (56)  |  Salt (48)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could have ever been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
Letter; as quoted in The Origin of Life by J.D. Bernal (1967) publ.Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London
Science quotes on:  |  Absorb (54)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Change (639)  |  Complex (202)  |  Compound (117)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Condition (362)  |  Creature (242)  |  Devour (29)  |  Electricity (168)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Heat (180)  |  Instantly (20)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pond (17)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Salt (48)  |  Still (614)  |  Warm (74)

It is probable that all organisms now alive are descended from one ancestor, for the following reason. Most of our structural molecules are asymmetrical, as shown by the fact that they rotate the plane of polarized light, and often form asymmetrical crystals. But of the two possible types of any such molecule, related to one another like a right and left boot, only one is found throughout living nature. The apparent exceptions to this rule are all small molecules which are not used in the building of the large structures which display the phenomena of life.
In 'The Origin of Life', The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1932), 157.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Building (158)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Descend (49)  |  Display (59)  |  Exception (74)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Form (976)  |  Large (398)  |  Left (15)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Organism (231)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Plane (22)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reason (766)  |  Right (473)  |  Rotate (8)  |  Rule (307)  |  Small (489)  |  Structural (29)  |  Structure (365)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)

Melvin Calvin was a fearless scientist, totally unafraid to venture into new fields such as hot atom chemistry, carcinogenesis, chemical evolution and the origin of life, organic geochemistry, immunochemistry, petroleum production from plants, farming, Moon rock analysis, and development of novel synthetic biomembrane models for plant photosystems.
Co-author with Andrew A. Benson, 'Melvin Calvin', Biographical Memoirs of the US National Academy of Science.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Atom (381)  |  Melvin Calvin (11)  |  Carcinogenesis (2)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Development (441)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Farm (28)  |  Fearless (7)  |  Field (378)  |  Hot (63)  |  Immunochemistry (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Model (106)  |  Moon (252)  |  New (1273)  |  Novel (35)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Petroleum (8)  |  Plant (320)  |  Production (190)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Synthetic (27)  |  Venture (19)

Recently, we’ve reported that we have made all five bases, the compounds that spell out the instructions for all life and are a part of the nucleic acids, RNA and DNA. Not only did we make all five bases but we found them in a meteorite! So that these two things coming together really assure us that the molecules necessary for life can be found in the absence of life. This was the biggest stumbling block.
In Space World (1985), 5, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Absence (21)  |  Acid (83)  |  Base (120)  |  Coming (114)  |  Compound (117)  |  DNA (81)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meteorite (9)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Nucleic Acid (23)  |  RNA (5)  |  Stumbling Block (6)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Together (392)  |  Two (936)

Some might accept evolution, if it allowed human beings to be created by God, but evolution won’t work halfway.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Being (1276)  |  Create (245)  |  Evolution (635)  |  God (776)  |  Halfway (2)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Work (1402)

Spontaneous generation is a chimera.
In 'Pasteur on Spontaneous Generation', Edinburgh Review, Or Critical Journal (Jan 1867), 125, 208. Cited from 'Sur les Corpuscules Organisés qui existent dans l’Atmosphere, Examen de la Doctrine des Génerations Spontanées', Annales de Chimie et de Physique (1862), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Chimera (10)  |  Generation (256)  |  Spontaneous (29)  |  Spontaneous Generation (9)

The conclusion of Science which recognizes unbroken casual connection between the past and the present would undoubtedly be that the molten earth contained within it elements of life, which grouped themselves into their present forms as the planet cooled. … The difficulty and reluctance encountered by this conception, arise solely from the fact that the theologic conception obtained a prior footing in the human mind. Did the latter depend upon reasoning alone, it could not hold its ground for an hour against its rival. * * * Were not man’s origin implicated, we should accept without a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable life from what we call inorganic nature. The conclusion of pure intellect points this way and no other.
As quoted in 'The Origin of Life', Scientific American (25 Dec 1875), 33, No. 26, 400. The article (by an unnamed writer), having quoted Tyndall, includes a parenthetical clarification, “The context shows that by ‘elements of life,’ Professor Tyndall does not mean entities but possibilities of molecular condition by which the phenomena of life were to be evolved in the natural course of events, not by the miraculous addition of a new force but by means of the forces already in play.”
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Derivation (15)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Molten (3)  |  Vegetable (49)

The great age of the earth will appear greater to man when he understands the origin of living organisms and the reasons for the gradual development and improvement of their organization. This antiquity will appear even greater when he realizes the length of time and the particular conditions which were necessary to bring all the living species into existence. This is particularly true since man is the latest result and present climax of this development, the ultimate limit of which, if it is ever reached, cannot be known.
Hydrogéologie (1802), trans. A. V. Carozzi (1964), 77.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Age Of The Earth (12)  |  Antiquity (34)  |  Condition (362)  |  Development (441)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Known (453)  |  Limit (294)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Organism (231)  |  Organization (120)  |  Origin (250)  |  Present (630)  |  Reach (286)  |  Realize (157)  |  Reason (766)  |  Result (700)  |  Species (435)  |  Time (1911)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

The human brain is a machine which alone accounts for all our actions, our most private thoughts, our beliefs. ... To choose a spouse, a job, a religious creed—or even choose to rob a bank—is the peak of a causal chain that runs back to the origin of life and down to the nature of atoms and molecules.
The Mind Machine (1998), 145. In Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping our World (2008), 179.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Action (342)  |  Alone (324)  |  Atom (381)  |  Back (395)  |  Bank (31)  |  Belief (615)  |  Brain (281)  |  Causal (7)  |  Chain (51)  |  Choose (116)  |  Creed (28)  |  Down (455)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Brain (4)  |  Job (86)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Peak (20)  |  Private (29)  |  Religious (134)  |  Rob (6)  |  Run (158)  |  Thought (995)

The mystery of life is certainly the most persistent problem ever placed before the thought of man. There is no doubt that from the time humanity began to think it has occupied itself with the problem of its origin and its future which undoubtedly is the problem of life. The inability of science to solve it is absolute. This would be truly frightening were it not for faith.
Address (10 Sep 1934) to the International Congress of Electro-Radio Biology, Venice. In Associated Press, 'Life a Closed Book, Declares Marconi', New York Times (11 Sep 1934), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Faith (209)  |  Frightening (3)  |  Future (467)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Inability (11)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Occupation (51)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Origin (250)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Persistent (18)  |  Problem (731)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Solution (282)  |  Solve (145)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Truly (118)

The present lack of a definitely acceptable account of the origin of life should certainly not be taken as a stumbling block for the whole Darwinian world view.
In The Blind Watchmaker (1991), 166.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptable (14)  |  Account (195)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Darwinian (10)  |  Definite (114)  |  Lack (127)  |  Life (1870)  |  Origin (250)  |  Present (630)  |  Stumbling Block (6)  |  View (496)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)  |  World View (3)

The publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The 'Origin' provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.
'On the Reception of the Origin of Species'. In F. Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (1888), Vol 2, 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Conception (160)  |  Dark (145)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Definite (114)  |  Effect (414)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Faith (209)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flash (49)  |  Form (976)  |  Himself (461)  |  Home (184)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Known (453)  |  Light (635)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Operation (221)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pin (20)  |  Proof (304)  |  Publication (102)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Still (614)  |  Straight (75)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Test (221)  |  Validity (50)  |  Alfred Russel Wallace (41)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Work (1402)

The question of the origin of life is essentially speculative. We have to construct, by straightforward thinking on the basis of very few factual observations, a plausible and self-consistent picture of a process which must have occurred before any of the forms which are known to us in the fossil record could have existed.
The Origin of Life (1967), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Consistent (50)  |  Construct (129)  |  Exist (458)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Fossil Record (12)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observation (593)  |  Origin (250)  |  Picture (148)  |  Plausible (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Question (649)  |  Record (161)  |  Self (268)  |  Straightforward (10)  |  Thinking (425)

The uniformity of the earth’s life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled. It is from the progeny of this parent cell that we take our looks; we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is a family resemblance.
In The Lives of a Cell (1974), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Astonishing (29)  |  Bolt (11)  |  Cell (146)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enzyme (19)  |  Family (101)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  Gene (105)  |  Grass (49)  |  High (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Look (584)  |  More (2558)  |  Parent (80)  |  Probability (135)  |  Progeny (16)  |  Resemblance (39)  |  Share (82)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)  |  Uniformity (38)  |  Whale (45)

The universe is reeking with organic matter. You could say that the universe is in the business of making life—or that God is an organic chemist.
From interview, 'The Seeds of Life', in The Omni Interviews (1984), 10.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Chemist (169)  |  God (776)  |  Life (1870)  |  Making (300)  |  Matter (821)  |  Organic (161)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Universe (900)

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.
In Evolution and Permanence of Type (1874), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Belief (615)  |  Best (467)  |  Conjecture (51)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Explain (334)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Possible (560)  |  Present (630)  |  Question (649)  |  State (505)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Way (1214)  |  World (1850)

When ultra-violet light acts on a mixture of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, a vast variety of organic substances are made, including sugars and apparently some of the materials from which proteins are built up…. But before the origin of life they must have accumulated till the primitive oceans reached the consistency of hot dilute soup…. The first living or half-living things were probably large molecules synthesized under the influence of the sun’s radiation, and only capable of reproduction in the particularly favorable medium in which they originated….
In 'The Origin of Life', The Inequality of Man: And Other Essays (1932, 1937), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Ammonia (15)  |  Capable (174)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Carbon Dioxide (25)  |  Compound (117)  |  Consistency (31)  |  Favorable (24)  |  First (1302)  |  Hot (63)  |  Influence (231)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Medium (15)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Originate (39)  |  Primitive (79)  |  Protein (56)  |  Radiation (48)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reproduction (74)  |  Soup (10)  |  Substance (253)  |  Sugar (26)  |  Sun (407)  |  Synthesize (3)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Variety (138)  |  Vast (188)  |  Violet (11)  |  Water (503)

While DNA could be claimed to be both simple and elegant, it must be remembered that DNA almost certainly originated fairly close to the origin of life when things were necessarily simple or they would not have got going.
In What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery (1988), 138.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Claim (154)  |  DNA (81)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Life (1870)  |  Must (1525)  |  Necessarily (137)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Origin (250)  |  Originate (39)  |  Remember (189)  |  Simple (426)  |  Thing (1914)


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.