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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index E > Epitaph Quotes

Epitaph
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Science Quotes by Epitaph (5 quotes)

Epitaph of John Hunter
The Royal College of Surgeons of England have placed this tablet over the grave of Hunter, to record their admiration of his genius as a gifted interpreter of the Divine Power and Wisdom at work in the Laws of Organic Life, and their grateful veneration for his services to mankind as the Founder of Scientific Surgery.
— Epitaph
Memorial brass in the floor of north aisle of Westminster Abbey, placed when Hunter's remains were reinterred there (28 Mar 1859). In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 6, 568.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  College (71)  |  Divine (112)  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Founder (26)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hunter (28)  |  John Hunter (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Organic (161)  |  Power (771)  |  Record (161)  |  Royal (56)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tablet (6)  |  Westminster Abbey (2)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Here lies Sir Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a vigour of mind almost supernatural, first demonstrated, the motions and Figures of the Planets, the Paths of the comets, and the Tides of the Ocean. He diligently investigated the different refrangibilities to the rays of light, … Let Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of Nature. Born, 25th Dec., 1642; died, 20th March, 1727.
— Epitaph
Translated from the Latin inscription on the tomb of Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. As quoted in John Stoughton, Worthies of Science (1879), 232-233.
Science quotes on:  |  Comet (65)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Exist (458)  |  Figure (162)  |  First (1302)  |  Great (1610)  |  Knight (6)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mortal (55)  |  Motion (320)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Ornament (20)  |  Path (159)  |  Planet (402)  |  Rejoice (11)  |  Supernatural (26)  |  Tide (37)  |  Vigour (18)

His mind illumined the Past and the Future and wrought greatly for the present. By his genius distant lands converse and men sail unafraid upon the deep.
— Epitaph
Inscription on the tomb of Reginald and Helen Fessenden in Bermuda. In Frederick Seitz, The Cosmic Inventor: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932) (1999), 61, being Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia For Promoting Useful Knowledge, Vol. 86, Pt. 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Converse (9)  |  Deep (241)  |  Distance (171)  |  Fear (212)  |  Future (467)  |  Genius (301)  |  Illumination (15)  |  Land (131)  |  Men (20)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Past (355)  |  Present (630)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sailor (21)

Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.
— Epitaph
Tombstone inscription, St. James' Church, Bramley, Hampshire. In Ruth Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (1996), 380.
Science quotes on:  |   Epitaph (19)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Lose (165)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physicist (270)

Putting together the mysteries of nature with the laws of mathematics, he dared to hope to be able to unlock the secrets of both with the same key.
Epitaph of René Descartes
— Epitaph
In Peter Pešic, Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science (2001), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Both (496)  |  Dare (55)  |  René Descartes (83)  |  Hope (321)  |  Key (56)  |  Law (913)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Secret (216)  |  Together (392)  |  Unlock (12)



Quotes by others about Epitaph (14)

S = k log Ω
Carved above his name on his tombstone in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna. Image in Stephen Brush, The Kind of Motion we Call Heat: A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century (1976), 609.
Science quotes on:  |  Entropy (46)  |  Kinetic Theory (7)  |  Name (359)

Coelorum perrupit claustra.
(He broke through the barriers of the heavens.)
Epitaph for William Herschel in Upton Church, where he is buried. Quoted in G. J. Whitrow, The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1959), 16. Also on memorial tile in Westminster Abbey.
Science quotes on:  |  Barrier (34)  |  Biography (254)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Through (846)

Opfer müssen gebracht werden!
Sacrifices must be made!
Remark made when near death after breaking his spine in an airplane crash in a glider of his design.
Quoted in Warren F. Phillips, Mechanics of Flight (2004), 371.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Death (406)  |  Design (203)  |  Must (1525)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Spine (9)

Si monumentum requiris circumspice
Reader, if you seek his monument, look about you.
On Wren’s tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Science quotes on:  |  Look (584)  |  Monument (45)  |  Seek (218)

The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms; but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author.
Epitaph on his tombstone
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Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen.
We must know. We will know.
Engraved on his tombstone in Göttingen. Lecture at Konigsberg, 1930. Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Vol. 3, 387, trans. Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Science quotes on:  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Must (1525)  |  Will (2350)

Epitaph of John Hunter
The Royal College of Surgeons of England have placed this tablet over the grave of Hunter, to record their admiration of his genius as a gifted interpreter of the Divine Power and Wisdom at work in the Laws of Organic Life, and their grateful veneration for his services to mankind as the Founder of Scientific Surgery.
Memorial brass in the floor of north aisle of Westminster Abbey, placed when Hunter's remains were reinterred there (28 Mar 1859). In Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1972), Vol. 6, 568.
Science quotes on:  |  Admiration (61)  |  College (71)  |  Divine (112)  |  Founder (26)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Grave (52)  |  Hunter (28)  |  John Hunter (8)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Organic (161)  |  Power (771)  |  Record (161)  |  Royal (56)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Service (110)  |  Surgeon (64)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Tablet (6)  |  Westminster Abbey (2)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body’s shadow lies here.
Epitaph that Kepler wrote for himself, a few months before he died. As translated from the original Latin, “Mensus eram coelos, nunc Terrae metior umbras. Mens coelestis erat, corporis umbra jacet.” In M. Caspar et al. (eds.), Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937), 19, 393.
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Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Epitaph on monument over his grave. Quoted in Thomas Williams Bicknell et al., Education (1912), 647
Science quotes on:  |  Biography (254)  |  Death (406)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Shame (15)  |  Victory (40)

Lise Meitner: a physicist who never lost her humanity.
Tombstone inscription, St. James' Church, Bramley, Hampshire. In Ruth Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (1996), 380.
Science quotes on:  |  Humanity (186)  |  Lose (165)  |  Never (1089)  |  Physicist (270)

A life that stood out as a gospel of self-forgetting service.
He could have added fortune to fame but caring for neither he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.
The centre of his world was the south where he was born in slavery some 79 years ago and where he did his work as a creative scientist.
Epitaph on tombstone at Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery, Alabama.
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I tried and failed. I tried again and again and succeeded.
[Epitaph from Gail Borden's gravestone.]
Science quotes on:  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Persistence (25)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Success (327)

We may almost say of him [Joseph Aspdin, inventor of Portland Cement] what the epitaph in St. Pauls Cathedral says of Sir Christopher Wren: “If you seek his monument, look around.”
Newspaper
In the Vancouver newspaper, 'The Sun's School Service: Portland Cement', The Vancouver Sun (14 Jan 1937), 12. No writer identified; part of the Sun-Ray Club feature “Conducted by Uncle Ben.”
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Nature will be reported. Everything in nature is engaged in writing its own history; the planet and the pebble are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves its furrows on the mountain-side, the river its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf, their modest epitaph in the coal.
In The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847, 1872), Vol. 2, 141.
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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
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