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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.
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Carolus Linnaeus Quotes on Genus (6 quotes)
>> Click for 23 Science Quotes by Carolus Linnaeus
>> Click for Carolus Linnaeus Quotes on | Animal | Classification | Species |
>> Click for 23 Science Quotes by Carolus Linnaeus
>> Click for Carolus Linnaeus Quotes on | Animal | Classification | Species |
Botany is based on fixed genera.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 209. Trans. Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 64.
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.
The species and the genus are always the work of nature [i.e. specially created]; the variety mostly that of circumstance; the class and the order are the work of nature and art.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Philosophia Botanica (1751), aphorism 162. Trans. Frans A. Statfleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (1971), 67.
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.
We admit as many genera as there are different groups of natural species of which the fructification has the same structure.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Fundamenta Botanica (1736), 159. Trans. Gunnar Eriksson, 'Linnaeus the Botanist', in Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Linnaeus: The Man and his Work (1983), 86.
Yet man does recognise himself [as an animal]. But I ask you and the whole world for a generic differentia between man and ape which conforms to the principles of natural history, I certainly know of none... If I were to call man ape or vice versa, I should bring down all the theologians on my head. But perhaps I should still do it according to the rules of science.
— Carolus Linnaeus
Letter to Johann Gmelon (14 Jan 1747), quoted in Mary Gribbin, Flower Hunters (2008), 56.
See also:
- 23 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Linnaeus's birth.
- Carl Linnaeus - from Famous Men of Science (1926)
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) -- 
