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: “A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country without trees is almost as helpless.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index B > Category: Benevolence

Benevolence Quotes (11 quotes)
Benevolance Quotes

And from this such small difference of eight minutes [of arc] it is clear why Ptolemy, since he was working with bisection [of the linear eccentricity], accepted a fixed equant point… . For Ptolemy set out that he actually did not get below ten minutes [of arc], that is a sixth of a degree, in making observations. To us, on whom Divine benevolence has bestowed the most diligent of observers, Tycho Brahe, from whose observations this eight-minute error of Ptolemy’s in regard to Mars is deduced, it is fitting that we accept with grateful minds this gift from God, and both acknowledge and build upon it. So let us work upon it so as to at last track down the real form of celestial motions (these arguments giving support to our belief that the assumptions are incorrect). This is the path I shall, in my own way, strike out in what follows. For if I thought the eight minutes in [ecliptic] longitude were unimportant, I could make a sufficient correction (by bisecting the [linear] eccentricity) to the hypothesis found in Chapter 16. Now, because they could not be disregarded, these eight minutes alone will lead us along a path to the reform of the whole of Astronomy, and they are the matter for a great part of this work.
Astronomia Nova, New Astronomy (1609), ch. 19, 113-4, Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937-), Vol. 3, 177-8.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arc (14)  |  Argument (145)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bestow (18)  |  Both (496)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Build (211)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Correction (42)  |  Degree (277)  |  Difference (355)  |  Diligent (19)  |  Divine (112)  |  Down (455)  |  Error (339)  |  Follow (389)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Last (425)  |  Lead (391)  |  Linear (13)  |  Longitude (8)  |  Making (300)  |  Mars (47)  |  Matter (821)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Observation (593)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Path (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Ptolemy (19)  |  Reform (22)  |  Regard (312)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Strike (72)  |  Sufficient (133)  |  Support (151)  |  Thought (995)  |  Track (42)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Business men are to be pitied who do not recognize the fact that the largest side of their secular business is benevolence. ... No man ever manages a legitimate business in this life without doing indirectly far more for other men than he is trying to do for himself.
Defining what makes a business legitimate. In Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887), 44.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Himself (461)  |  Largest (39)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Manage (26)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pity (16)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Secular (11)  |  Side (236)  |  Trying (144)

How agreeable … to dwell on the praises of Astronomy: to consider its happy effects as a science, on the human mind. … The direct tendency of this science is to dilate the heart with universal benevolence, and to enlarge its views.
From Oration (24 Feb 1775) delivered to The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Collected in William Barton, Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse (1813), 569.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Praise (28)

It is by the aid of iron that we construct houses, cleave rocks, and perform so many other useful offices of life. But it is with iron also that wars, murders, and robberies are effected, and this, not only hand to hand, but from a distance even, by the aid of missiles and winged weapons, now launched from engines, now hurled by the human arm, and now furnished with feathery wings. This last I regard as the most criminal artifice that has been devised by the human mind; for, as if to bring death upon man with still greater rapidity, we have given wings to iron and taught it to fly. ... Nature, in conformity with her usual benevolence, has limited the power of iron, by inflicting upon it the punishment of rust; and has thus displayed her usual foresight in rendering nothing in existence more perishable, than the substance which brings the greatest dangers upon perishable mortality.
Natural History of Pliny, translation (1857, 1898) by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 205-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Arm (82)  |  Cleave (2)  |  Construct (129)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Danger (127)  |  Death (406)  |  Display (59)  |  Distance (171)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engine (99)  |  Existence (481)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foresight (8)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Greater (288)  |  Greatest (330)  |  House (143)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Iron (99)  |  Last (425)  |  Launch (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Missile (7)  |  More (2558)  |  Mortality (16)  |  Most (1728)  |  Murder (16)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Office (71)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perform (123)  |  Perish (56)  |  Power (771)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Rapidity (29)  |  Regard (312)  |  Robbery (6)  |  Rock (176)  |  Rust (9)  |  Spear (8)  |  Still (614)  |  Substance (253)  |  Useful (260)  |  War (233)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Wing (79)

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
Concluding remarks. The Descent of Man (1871), Vol. 2, 405.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Acknowledge (33)  |  Bear (162)  |  Best (467)  |  Concern (239)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Creature (242)  |  Destiny (54)  |  Discover (571)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Extend (129)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fear (212)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Future (467)  |  God (776)  |  Hope (321)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Humblest (4)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Movement (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Noble (93)  |  Organic (161)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Pride (84)  |  Reason (766)  |  Scale (122)  |  Solar System (81)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Still (614)  |  Summit (27)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  System (545)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)

Science gives us the grounds of premises from which religious truths are to be inferred; but it does not set about inferring them, much less does it reach the inference; that is not its province. It brings before us phenomena, and it leaves us, if we will, to call them works of design, wisdom, or benevolence; and further still, if we will, to proceed to confess an Intelligent Creator. We have to take its facts, and to give them a meaning, and to draw our own conclusions from them. First comes Knowledge, then a view, then reasoning, then belief. This is why Science has so little of a religious tendency; deductions have no power of persuasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.
Letter collected in Tamworth Reading Room: Letters on an Address Delivered by Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P. on the Establishment of a Reading Room at Tamworth (1841), 32. Excerpted in John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870), 89 & 94 footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Bring (95)  |  Call (781)  |  Commonly (9)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Confess (42)  |  Creator (97)  |  Deduction (90)  |  Deed (34)  |  Description (89)  |  Design (203)  |  Die (94)  |  Direct (228)  |  Dogma (49)  |  Draw (140)  |  Event (222)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Far (158)  |  First (1302)  |  Give (208)  |  Ground (222)  |  Heart (243)  |  History (716)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Impression (118)  |  Infer (12)  |  Inference (45)  |  Inflame (2)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Leave (138)  |  Less (105)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Martyr (3)  |  Mean (810)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Means (587)  |  Melt (16)  |  Person (366)  |  Persuasion (9)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Power (771)  |  Premise (40)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Province (37)  |  Reach (286)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Religious (134)  |  Set (400)  |  Still (614)  |  Subdue (7)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Testimony (21)  |  Through (846)  |  Truth (1109)  |  View (496)  |  Voice (54)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Work (1402)

Benjamin Banneker quote: so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression
Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the Same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.
In Letter to Thomas Jefferson (19 Aug 1791). In John Hazlehurst Boneval Latrobe, Memoir of Benjamin Banneker: Read Before the Maryland Historical Society, at the Monthly Meeting, May 1, 1845 (1845), 15-16.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Captivity (2)  |  Conferred (2)  |  Convinced (23)  |  Counteract (5)  |  Criminal (18)  |  Cruel (25)  |  Detest (5)  |  Distribution (51)  |  Equal (88)  |  Father (113)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Groan (6)  |  Guilt (13)  |  Impartial (4)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mercy (12)  |  Most (1728)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Oppression (6)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pity (16)  |  Privilege (41)  |  Profess (21)  |  Reflect (39)  |  Respect (212)  |  Right (473)  |  Slave (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Violence (37)

The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life activity; it provides protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axeman who destroys it.
In Sergius Alexander Wilde, Forest Soils and Forest Growth (1946), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Being (1276)  |  Demand (131)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Extend (129)  |  Forest (161)  |  Generosity (7)  |  Generous (17)  |  Kindness (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Offer (142)  |  Organism (231)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Peculiarity (26)  |  Product (166)  |  Protection (41)  |  Provide (79)  |  Shade (35)  |  Sustenance (5)  |  Tree (269)  |  Unlimited (24)

This sense of the unfathomable beautiful ocean of existence drew me into science. I am awed by the universe, puzzled by it and sometimes angry at a natural order that brings such pain and suffering, Yet an emotion or feeling I have toward the cosmos seems to be reciprocated by neither benevolence nor hostility but just by silence. The universe appears to be a perfectly neutral screen unto which I can project any passion or attitude, and it supports them all.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Angry (10)  |  Appear (122)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Awe (43)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Bring (95)  |  Cosmos (64)  |  Draw (140)  |  Emotion (106)  |  Existence (481)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Hostility (16)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Order (6)  |  Neutral (15)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Order (638)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passion (121)  |  Perfectly (10)  |  Project (77)  |  Puzzle (46)  |  Screen (8)  |  Seem (150)  |  Sense (785)  |  Silence (62)  |  Sometimes (46)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Support (151)  |  Toward (45)  |  Unfathomable (11)  |  Universe (900)  |  Unto (8)

This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life-giving, others filled with malice and hunger. Dark places where powers older than time lie ravenous and waiting. Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?
Movie
Spoken by character The Ancient One (actress Tilda Swinton), in movie Doctor Strange (2016).
Science quotes on:  |  Infinite (243)  |  Malice (6)  |  Multiverse (2)  |  Universe (900)

While the [strong] force has mastery over the little nuclei of light atoms, at uranium, with a couple of hundred particles packed into the nucleus, it is losing control, and the nucleus tends to fall apart. Whether or not it does so in a controlled way determines the level of social benevolance of the outcome.
In Creation Revisited: The Origin of Space, Time and the Universe (1992), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Control (182)  |  Mastery (36)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Pack (6)  |  Particle (200)  |  Uranium (21)


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.