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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index A > John Armstrong Quotes

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John Armstrong
(1709 - 7 Sep 1779)

Scottish physician and poet who wrote poetry with medical themes.


Science Quotes by John Armstrong (4 quotes)

John Armstrong, M.D. - upper body mezzotint.
John Armstrong - mezzotint by Edward Fisher from a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
[Describing the effects of over-indulgence in wine:]
But most too passive, when the blood runs low
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,
And bravely by resisting conquer fate,
Try Circe's arts; and in the tempting bowl
Of poisoned nectar sweet oblivion swill.
Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round,
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lightened soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;
And what was difficult, and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars:
The happiest you of all that e'er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom
Shuts o'er your head; and, as the thundering stream,
Swollen o'er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook,
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone,
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavished more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endured; so may the throbbing head;
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus felt,
When, baited round Citheron's cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.
— John Armstrong
The Art of Preserving Health: a Poem in Four Books (2nd. ed., 1745), Book IV, 108-110.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Art (680)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Bank (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Care (203)  |  Charm (54)  |  Conquer (39)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Delirium (3)  |  Despair (40)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dire (6)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Dream (222)  |  Drunk (10)  |  Effect (414)  |  Empty (82)  |  Fate (76)  |  Find (1014)  |  Folly (44)  |  Frenzy (6)  |  Gloom (11)  |  Headache (5)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Hope (321)  |  Indulgence (6)  |  Involve (93)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Low (86)  |  Mad (54)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Morning (98)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Night (133)  |  Open (277)  |  Pain (144)  |  Poison (46)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Prodigal (2)  |  Rain (70)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Rash (15)  |  Return (133)  |  Run (158)  |  Saw (160)  |  Shut (41)  |  Side (236)  |  Sink (38)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Soon (187)  |  Soul (235)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stomach (40)  |  Stream (83)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sun (407)  |  Superior (88)  |  Support (151)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Tempting (10)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)  |  Waking (17)  |  Wine (39)  |  Yield (86)

For want of timely care
Millions have died of medicable wounds.
— John Armstrong
Art of Preserving Health.
Science quotes on:  |  Care (203)  |  Death (406)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Urgency (13)  |  Want (504)  |  Wound (26)

Many more Englishmen die by the lancet at home,
than by the sword abroad.
— John Armstrong
Attributed.
Science quotes on:  |  Abroad (19)  |  Death (406)  |  Home (184)  |  More (2558)  |  Sword (16)  |  Treatment (135)

The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigour, and warm life conveys
To every Particle that moves or lives;
This vital fluid, thro' unnumber'd tubes
Pour'd by the heart, and to the heart again
Refunded; scourg'd forever round and round;
Enrag'd with heat and toil, at last forgets
Its balmy nature; virulent and thin
It grows; and now, but that a thousand gates
Are open to its flight, it would destroy
The parts it cherish' d and repair'd before.
Besides, the flexible and tender tubes
Melt in the mildest, most nectareous tide
That ripening Nature rolls; as in the stream
Its crumbling banks; but what the vital force
Of plastic fluids hourly batters down,
That very force, those plastic particles
Rebuild: so mutable the state of man.
For this the watchful appetite was given,
Daily with fresh materials to repair
This unavoidable expense of life,
This necessary waste of flesh and blood.
Hence the concoctive powers, with various art,
Subdue the cruder aliments to chyle;
The chyle to blood; the foamy purple tide
To liquors, which through finer arteries
To different parts their winding course pursue;
To try new changes, and new forms put on,
Or for the public, or some private use.
— John Armstrong
The Art of Preserving Health (1744), book 2, I. 12-23, p.15-16.
Science quotes on:  |  Appetite (20)  |  Art (680)  |  Bank (31)  |  Blood (144)  |  Change (639)  |  Cherish (25)  |  Course (413)  |  Daily (91)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Different (595)  |  Down (455)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flow (89)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Forever (111)  |  Forget (125)  |  Form (976)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Gate (33)  |  Generous (17)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Live (650)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Necessary (370)  |  New (1273)  |  Open (277)  |  Particle (200)  |  Plastic (30)  |  Power (771)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Roll (41)  |  Spirit (278)  |  State (505)  |  Stream (83)  |  Subdue (7)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Tide (37)  |  Toil (29)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Various (205)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Vital (89)  |  Vital Force (7)  |  Warm (74)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  Winding (8)


See also:

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)

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- 40 -
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