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: “The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index C > W. Wallace Campbell Quotes

Thumbnail of W. Wallace Campbell (source)
W. Wallace Campbell
(11 Apr 1862 - 14 Jun 1938)

American astronomer who was director at Lick Observatory (1901-1930). He is remembered for the systematic observation of radial velocity of stars.


Science Quotes by W. Wallace Campbell (3 quotes)

Photo of W. Wallace Campbell head and shoulders, facing front, credit IAU, colorization © todayinsci
(IAU cc-by-4.0) (source)
It is of priceless value to the human race to know that the sun will supply the needs of the earth, as to light and heat, for millions of years; that the stars are not lanterns hung out at night, but are suns like our own; and that numbers of them probably have planets revolving around them, perhaps in many cases with inhabitants adapted to the conditions existing there. In a sentence, the main purpose of the science is to learn the truth about the stellar universe; to increase human knowledge concerning our surroundings, and to widen the limits of intellectual life.
— W. Wallace Campbell
In 'The Nature of the Astronomer’s Work', North American Review (Jun 1908), 187, No. 631, 915.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Condition (362)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Hang (46)  |  Heat (180)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Increase (225)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lantern (8)  |  Learn (672)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Million (124)  |  Need (320)  |  Night (133)  |  Number (710)  |  Planet (402)  |  Priceless (9)  |  Probability (135)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  Revolve (26)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Stellar (4)  |  Sun (407)  |  Supply (100)  |  Surrounding (13)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Universe (900)  |  Value (393)  |  Widen (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

That the main results of the astronomer’s work are not so immediately practical does not detract from their value. They are, I venture to think, the more to be prized on that account. Astronomy has profoundly influenced the thought of the race. In fact, it has been the keystone in the arch of the sciences under which we have marched out from the darkness of the fifteenth and preceding centuries to the comparative light of to-day.
— W. Wallace Campbell
In 'The Nature of the Astronomer’s Work', North American Review (Jun 1908), 187, No. 631, 915.
Science quotes on:  |  15th Century (5)  |  Account (195)  |  Arch (12)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Comparative (14)  |  Darkness (72)  |  Detract (2)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Immediately (115)  |  Influence (231)  |  Keystone (3)  |  Light (635)  |  March (48)  |  More (2558)  |  Practical (225)  |  Prize (13)  |  Profound (105)  |  Race (278)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thought (995)  |  Value (393)  |  Work (1402)

Who can estimate the value to civilization of the Copernican system of the sun and planets? A round earth, an earth not the centre of the universe, an earth obeying law, an earth developed by processes of evolution covering tens of millions of years, is incomparably grander than the earth which ante-Copernican imagination pictured.
— W. Wallace Campbell
In 'The Nature of the Astronomer’s Work', North American Review (Jun 1908), 187, No. 631, 915.
Science quotes on:  |  Centre (31)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Copernican (3)  |  Covering (14)  |  Develop (278)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Estimate (59)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Grand (29)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Incomparable (14)  |  Law (913)  |  Millions (17)  |  Obey (46)  |  Planet (402)  |  Process (439)  |  Research (753)  |  Round (26)  |  Sun (407)  |  System (545)  |  Universe (900)  |  Value (393)  |  Year (963)


See also:
  • 11 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Campbell's birth.

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.