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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index L > Carolus Linnaeus Quotes > Classification

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Carolus Linnaeus
(23 May 1707 - 10 Jan 1778)

Swedish botanist and explorer who established the first precise biological classification, with a uniform system for naming organisms by genera and species of organisms.


Carolus Linnaeus Quotes on Classification (4 quotes)

>> Click for 23 Science Quotes by Carolus Linnaeus

>> Click for Carolus Linnaeus Quotes on | Animal | Genus | Species |

Natural bodies are divided into three kingdoms of nature: viz. the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Minerals grow, Plants grow and live, Animals grow, live, and have feeling.
— Carolus Linnaeus
'Observations on the Three Kingdoms of Nature', Nos 14-15. Systema Naturae (1735). As quoted (translated) in Étienne Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality (2009), 42-43.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Classification (102)  |  Divided (50)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Live (650)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Natural (810)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Plant (320)  |  Vegetable (49)

Nomenclature, the other foundation of botany, should provide the names as soon as the classification is made... If the names are unknown knowledge of the things also perishes... For a single genus, a single name.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 210. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Botany (63)  |  Classification (102)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Genus (27)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perish (56)  |  Single (365)  |  Soon (187)  |  Species (435)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Unknown (195)

The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves; this notion consists in having a true idea of the objects; objects are distinguished and known by classifying them methodically and giving them appropriate names. Therefore, classification and name-giving will be the foundation of our science.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Systema Naturae (1735), trans. M. S. J. Engel-Ledeboer and H. Engel (1964), 19.
Science quotes on:  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Classification (102)  |  Consist (223)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  First (1302)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Idea (881)  |  Know (1538)  |  Known (453)  |  Name (359)  |  Notion (120)  |  Object (438)  |  Step (234)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)

The names of the plants ought to be stable [certa], consequently they should be given to stable genera.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 151. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 57.
Science quotes on:  |  Classification (102)  |  Genus (27)  |  Name (359)  |  Plant (320)  |  Stable (32)


See also:
  • 23 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Linnaeus's birth.
  • Carl Linnaeus - from Famous Men of Science (1926)

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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