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Louis Agassiz
(28 May 1807 - 14 Dec 1873)
Swiss-American naturalist and geologist who published several volumes describing and classifying fossil fish. He is also known for significant work on glacier activity.
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Louis Agassiz Quotes on God (5 quotes)
>> Click for 39 Science Quotes by Louis Agassiz
>> Click for Louis Agassiz Quotes on | Earth | Evolution | Geology | Knowledge | Nature | Study | Teaching |
>> Click for 39 Science Quotes by Louis Agassiz
>> Click for Louis Agassiz Quotes on | Earth | Evolution | Geology | Knowledge | Nature | Study | Teaching |
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
As quoted in E.P. Whipple, 'Recollections of Agassiz', in Henry Mills Alden (ed.), Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June 1879), 59, 103.
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
As quoted in E.P. Whipple, 'Recollections of Agassiz', in Henry Mills Alden (ed.), Harper's New Monthly Magazine (June 1879), 59, 103.
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
In 'Ice-Period in America', Geological Sketches (1875), 99.
The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful conceptions [of Nature] exhibits not only thought, it shows also premeditation, power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History must in good time become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe….
— Louis Agassiz
In Essay on Classification (1851), 205.
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
Methods of Study in Natural History (1863), Preface, iv.
See also:
- 28 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Agassiz's birth.
- Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science, by Edward Lurie. - book suggestion.
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) -- 
