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: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index C > Category: Compass

Compass Quotes (37 quotes)

'Tis certain that our senses are extremely disproportioned for comprehending the whole compass and latitude of things.
In Mathematical Magic; or the Wonders That May Be Performed by Mechanical Geometry (1680), 116
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Certainty (180)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Extremely (17)  |  Latitude (6)  |  Nature Of Things (30)  |  Sense (785)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Whole (756)

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.
In Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859, 1861), 15.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experience (494)  |  Extent (142)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Government (116)  |  Growth (200)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Help (116)  |  Helpless (14)  |  Human (1512)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Invariably (35)  |  Invigorate (3)  |  Live (650)  |  Maxim (19)  |  National (29)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Render (96)  |  Result (700)  |  Root (121)  |  Self (268)  |  Small (489)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Strength (139)  |  Subject (543)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Vast (188)  |  Vigour (18)  |  Whatever (234)

[The compass needle] as the guide of Vasco de Gama to the East Indies, and of Columbus to the West Indies and the New World, it was pre-eminently the precursor and pioneer of the telegraph. Silently, and as with finger on its lips, it led them across the waste of waters to the new homes of the world; but when these were largely filled, and houses divided between the old and new hemispheres longed to exchange affectionate greetings, it removed its finger and broke silence. The quivering magnetic needle which lies in the coil of the galvanometer is the tongue of the electric telegraph, and already engineers talk of it as speaking.
'Progress of the Telegraph.' In Jesse Aitken Wilson, Memoirs of George Wilson. Quoted in Natural History Society of Montreal, 'Reviews and Notices of Books,' The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist (1861) Vol. 6, 392.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Divided (50)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Exchange (38)  |  Galvanometer (4)  |  Greeting (10)  |  Guide (107)  |  Home (184)  |  House (143)  |  Lie (370)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Precursor (5)  |  Silence (62)  |  Speaking (118)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Waste (109)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)

Nautae etiam mare legentes, cum beneficium claritatis solis in tempore nubilo non sentiunt, aut etiam cum caligne nocturnarum tenebrarum mundus obvolvitur, et ignorant in quem mundi cardinem prora tendat, acum super mangentem ponunt, quae circulariter circumvolvitur usque dum, ejus motu cessante.
Mariners at sea, when, through cloudy weather in the day which hides the sun, or through the darkness of night, they lose knowlege of the quarter of the world to which they are sailing, touch a needle with a magnet, which will turn round till, on its motion ceasing, its point will be directed towards the north.
De naturis rerum. Original Latin text quoted in Thomas Wright, A Volume of Vocabularies... (1873), 114. Translation from Lloyd A Brown, The Story of Maps (1980), 127.
Science quotes on:  |  Darkness (72)  |  Direct (228)  |  Hide (70)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Lose (165)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Motion (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Sailing (14)  |  Sea (326)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)  |  Touch (146)  |  Turn (454)  |  Weather (49)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

Qui ergo munitam vult habere navem habet etiam acum jaculo suppositam. Rotabitur enim et circumvolvetur acus, donec cuspis acus respiciat orientem sicque comprehendunt quo tendere debeant nautaw cum Cynosura latet in aeris turbatione; quamvis ad occasum numquam tendat, propter circuli brevitatem.
If then one wishes a ship well provided with all things, then one must have also a needle mounted on a dart. The needle will be oscillated and turn until the point of the needle directs itself to the East* [North], thus making known to sailors the route which they should hold while the Little Bear is concealed from them by the vicissitudes of the atmosphere; for it never disappears under the horizon because of the smallness of the circle it describes.
Latin text from Thomas Wright, 'De Utensilibus', A Volume of Vocabularies, (1857) as cited with translation in Park Benjamin, The Intellectual Rise in Electricity: A History (1895), 129.
Science quotes on:  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Circle (117)  |  Concealed (25)  |  Describe (132)  |  Direct (228)  |  Disappear (84)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Known (453)  |  Little (717)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Making (300)  |  Mount (43)  |  Must (1525)  |  Never (1089)  |  Point (584)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Ship (69)  |  Smallness (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Vicissitude (6)  |  Will (2350)

All the real true knowledge we have of Nature is intirely experimental, insomuch that, how strange soever the assertion seems, we may lay this down as the first fundamental unerring rule in physics, That it is not within the compass of human understanding to assign a purely speculative reason for any one phaenomenon in nature.
In The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding (1728, 1729), 205-206.
Science quotes on:  |  Assertion (35)  |  Down (455)  |  Experimental (193)  |  First (1302)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Purely (111)  |  Real (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Rule (307)  |  Seem (150)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Strange (160)  |  True (239)  |  Understand (648)  |  Understanding (527)

Although I have several agents who know the Niam-Niam country, I did not dare to make anything of their unreliable statements before I could orient myself. These Nubians are unpredictable to a high degree, they have a very poor memory for names and practically no human idea of the points of the compass; the agents of the merchants of Khartoum who are entrusted with such great journeys are to the last man absolute liars, braggarts and habitual fibbers.
In August Petermann, Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen (1870), 20. As quoted and cited in Kathrin Fritsch, '"You Have Everything Confused And Mixed Up…!" Georg Schweinfurth, Knowledge And Cartography Of Africa In The 19th Century', History in Africa (2009), 36, 93-94. Fritsch comments how at that point in his travels, thus far, Schweinfurth “did not appear to understand their geographical orientation and with his European prejudice he chose to view all Nubians as braggarts and liars.
Science quotes on:  |  Absolute (153)  |  Agent (73)  |  Country (269)  |  Dare (55)  |  Habitual (5)  |  Journey (48)  |  Know (1538)  |  Liar (8)  |  Memory (144)  |  Merchant (7)  |  Name (359)  |  Niam-Niam (2)  |  Nubian (6)  |  Orient (5)  |  Statement (148)  |  Unpredictable (18)  |  Unreliable (4)

As every circumstance relating to so capital a discovery as this (the greatest, perhaps, that has been made in the whole compass of philosophy, since the time of Sir Isaac Newton) cannot but give pleasure to all my readers, I shall endeavour to gratify them with the communication of a few particulars which I have from the best authority. The Doctor [Benjamin Franklin], after having published his method of verifying his hypothesis concerning the sameness of electricity with the matter lightning, was waiting for the erection of a spire in Philadelphia to carry his views into execution; not imagining that a pointed rod, of a moderate height, could answer the purpose; when it occurred to him, that, by means of a common kite, he could have a readier and better access to the regions of thunder than by any spire whatever. Preparing, therefore, a large silk handkerchief, and two cross sticks, of a proper length, on which to extend it, he took the opportunity of the first approaching thunder storm to take a walk into a field, in which there was a shed convenient for his purpose. But dreading the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science, he communicated his intended experiment to no body but his son, who assisted him in raising the kite.
The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he inmmediately presented his knuckle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wetted the string, he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he had heard of any thing that they had done.
The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (1767, 3rd ed. 1775), Vol. 1, 216-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Access (21)  |  Answer (389)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Attend (67)  |  Authority (99)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Best (467)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Carry (130)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Common (447)  |  Communication (101)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Despair (40)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Dispute (36)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electrician (6)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Endeavour (63)  |  Evident (92)  |  Execution (25)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Extend (129)  |  Field (378)  |  Fire (203)  |  First (1302)  |  France (29)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Judge (114)  |  Key (56)  |  Kite (4)  |  Large (398)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Moment (260)  |  Month (91)  |  Must (1525)  |  Observed (149)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Past (355)  |  Philadelphia (3)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Point (584)  |  Preparing (21)  |  Present (630)  |  Proper (150)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rain (70)  |  Ridicule (23)  |  Sameness (3)  |  Silk (14)  |  Spark (32)  |  Spire (5)  |  Stand (284)  |  Storm (56)  |  String (22)  |  Succeed (114)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thread (36)  |  Thunder (21)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Verification (32)  |  View (496)  |  Waiting (42)  |  Walk (138)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whole (756)

Astronomy and Pure Mathematics are the magnetic poles toward which the compass of my mind ever turns.
In Letter to Bolyai (30 Jun 1803), in Franz Schmidt and Paul Stäckel, Briefwechsel zwischen Carl Friedrich Gauss und Wolfgang Bolyai, (1899), Letter XXIII , 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Pole (49)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Toward (45)  |  Turn (454)

Biology has become as unthinkable without gene-splicing techniques as sending an explorer into the jungle without a compass.
Magazine interview (1981); one year after becoming the first scientist to make bacteria produce a facsimile of human interferon.
'Shaping Life in the Lab'. In Time (9 Mar 1981).
Science quotes on:  |  Bacteria (50)  |  Become (821)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Biology (232)  |  Explorer (30)  |  First (1302)  |  Gene (105)  |  Human (1512)  |  Jungle (24)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Technique (84)  |  Unthinkable (8)  |  Year (963)

From the point of view of the physicist, a theory of matter is a policy rather than a creed; its object is to connect or co-ordinate apparently diverse phenomena, and above all to suggest, stimulate and direct experiment. It ought to furnish a compass which, if followed, will lead the observer further and further into previously unexplored regions.
The Corpuscular Theory of Matter (1907), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Connect (126)  |  Creed (28)  |  Direct (228)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Follow (389)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Lead (391)  |  Matter (821)  |  Object (438)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Point (584)  |  Point Of View (85)  |  Theory (1015)  |  View (496)  |  Will (2350)

He who loves practice without theory is like a seafarer who boards ship without wheel or compass and knows not wither he travels.
From the original Italian: “Quelli che s’inamorā di pratica sāza sciētia, sō come ’l nochiere che ēstra navilio sanza timone o bussola che mai à certezza dove si uada.” Italian and English in Jean Paul Richter (trans), G. 8a, 'General Introduction to the Book on Painting', The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), Vol. 1, 18. Also seen translated as “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast,” in Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought From Ancient to Modern Times (1972), 224.
Science quotes on:  |  Cast (69)  |  Know (1538)  |  Love (328)  |  Practice (212)  |  Rudder (4)  |  Sailor (21)  |  Ship (69)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Travel (125)  |  Wheel (51)

His work was so great that it cannot be compassed in a few words. His death is one of the greatest losses ever to occur to British science.
Describing Ernest Rutherford upon his death at age 66. Thomson, then 80 years old, was once his teacher.
Quoted in Time Magazine (1 Nov 1937).
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  British (42)  |  Death (406)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Occur (151)  |  Old (499)  |  Sir Ernest Rutherford (55)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Word (650)  |  Work (1402)  |  Year (963)

If I choose to impose individual blame for all past social ills, there will be no one left to like in some of the most fascinating periods of our history. For example ... if I place every Victorian anti-Semite beyond the pale of my attention, my compass of available music and literature will be pitifully small. Though I hold no shred of sympathy for active persecution, I cannot excoriate individuals who acquiesced passively in a standard societal judgment. Rail instead against the judgment, and try to understand what motivates men of decent will.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Acquiesce (2)  |  Active (80)  |  Against (332)  |  Attention (196)  |  Available (80)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Blame (31)  |  Choose (116)  |  Decent (12)  |  Example (98)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  History (716)  |  Hold (96)  |  Impose (22)  |  Individual (420)  |  Instead (23)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Leave (138)  |  Literature (116)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motivate (8)  |  Music (133)  |  Pale (9)  |  Passively (3)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Persecution (14)  |  Place (192)  |  Rail (5)  |  Shred (7)  |  Small (489)  |  Social (261)  |  Standard (64)  |  Sympathy (35)  |  Try (296)  |  Understand (648)  |  Victorian (6)  |  Will (2350)

In 1892 one of us was able within the compass of a short article in a medical journal to give a résumé of our knowledge of the Trypanosomes. To-day it requires a whole volume to relate all that is known about these hæmatozoa and the diseases to which they give rise.
Opening lines from Introduction to Alphonse Laveran and Felix Etienne Pierre Mesnil Trypanosomes and Trypanosomiasis (1904), v. English edition translated and much enlarged by David Nabarro, (1907), xv. The article was footnoted as A. Laveran, Arch. Méd. Expérim. (1 Mar 1892).
Science quotes on:  |  Article (22)  |  Disease (340)  |  Journal (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Known (453)  |  Medical (31)  |  Require (229)  |  Resume (4)  |  Rise (169)  |  Short (200)  |  Volume (25)  |  Whole (756)

In modern Europe, the Middle Ages were called the Dark Ages. Who dares to call them so now? … Their Dante and Alfred and Wickliffe and Abelard and Bacon; their Magna Charta, decimal numbers, mariner’s compass, gunpowder, glass, paper, and clocks; chemistry, algebra, astronomy; their Gothic architecture, their painting,—are the delight and tuition of ours. Six hundred years ago Roger Bacon explained the precession of the equinoxes, and the necessity of reform in the calendar; looking over how many horizons as far as into Liverpool and New York, he announced that machines can be constructed to drive ships more rapidly than a whole galley of rowers could do, nor would they need anything but a pilot to steer; carriages, to move with incredible speed, without aid of animals; and machines to fly into the air like birds.
In 'Progress of Culture', an address read to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 18 July 1867. Collected in Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883), 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Peter Abelard (3)  |  Age (509)  |  Aid (101)  |  Air (366)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Animal (651)  |  Announce (13)  |  Architecture (50)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Roger Bacon (20)  |  Bird (163)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Call (781)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Clock (51)  |  Construct (129)  |  Dante Alighieri (10)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Delight (111)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drive (61)  |  Equinox (5)  |  Europe (50)  |  Explain (334)  |  Far (158)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gothic (4)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Incredible (43)  |  Liverpool (3)  |  Looking (191)  |  Machine (271)  |  Magna Carta (3)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Middle Ages (12)  |  Modern (402)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Necessity (197)  |  Need (320)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Number (710)  |  Painting (46)  |  Paper (192)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Precession (4)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Reform (22)  |  Ship (69)  |  Speed (66)  |  Steer (4)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Tuition (3)  |  Whole (756)  |  Year (963)

In that memorable year, 1822: Oersted, a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile. On his table was a magnetized needle on its pivot, and he suddenly saw (by chance you will say, but chance only favours the mind which is prepared) the needle move and take up a position quite different from the one assigned to it by terrestrial magnetism. A wire carrying an electric current deviates a magnetized needle from its position. That, gentlemen, was the birth of the modern telegraph.
Le hasard favorise l’esprit preparé
Inaugural Address as newly appointed Professor and Dean (Sep 1854) at the opening of the new Faculté des Sciences at Lille (7 Dec 1854). In René Vallery-Radot, The Life of Pasteur, translated by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire (1919), 76.
Science quotes on:  |  Battery (12)  |  Birth (154)  |  Chance (244)  |  Copper (25)  |  Current (122)  |  Different (595)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Modern (402)  |  Move (223)  |  Movement (162)  |  Needle (7)  |  Hans Christian Oersted (5)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Pole (49)  |  Saw (160)  |  Say (989)  |  Suddenly (91)  |  Table (105)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wire (36)  |  Year (963)

In the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom.
Vitruvius
Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of a man with outstretched limbs inscribed in a circle is thus called the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490). In De Architectura, Book 3, Chap 1, Sec. 3. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Body (557)  |  Center (35)  |  Central (81)  |  Circle (117)  |  Circumference (23)  |  Extend (129)  |  Finger (48)  |  Flat (34)  |  Foot (65)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Navel (2)  |  Point (584)  |  Toe (8)  |  Touch (146)  |  Two (936)  |  Will (2350)

Inventions and discoveries are of two kinds. The one which we owe to chance, such as those of the mariner’s compass, gunpowder, and in general almost all the discoveries we have made in the arts. The other which we owe to genius: and here we ought to understand by the word discovery, a new combination, or a new relation perceived between certain objects or ideas. A person obtains the title of a man of genius, if the ideas which result from this combination form one grand whole, are fruitful in truths, and are of importance with respect to mankind.
From the original French, “Les inventions ou les découvertes sont de deux espèces. Il en est que nous devons au hazard; telles sont la boussole, la poudre à canon, & généralement presque toutes les découvertes que nous avons faites dans les arts. Il en est d'autres que nous devons au génie: &, par ce mot de découverte, on doit alors entendre une nouvelle combinaison, un rapport nouveau aperçu entre certains objets ou certaines idées. On obtient le titre d'homme de génie, si les idées qui résultent de ce rapport forment un grand ensemble, sont fécondes en vérités & intéressantes pour l'humanité,” in 'Du Génie', L’Esprit (1758), Discourse 4, 476. English version from Claude Adrien Helvétius and William Mudford (trans.), 'Of Genius', De l’Esprit or, Essays on the Mind and its several Faculties (1759), Essay 4, Chap. 1, 241-242.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chance (244)  |  Combination (150)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruitful (61)  |  General (521)  |  Genius (301)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Idea (881)  |  Importance (299)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kind (564)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  New (1273)  |  Object (438)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Owe (71)  |  Perceive (46)  |  Person (366)  |  Relation (166)  |  Respect (212)  |  Result (700)  |  Title (20)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)  |  Understand (648)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

Life is not a chain of events but an area—something spreading out from a hidden centre and welling at once toward all points of the compass.
The Gentle Art of Tramping (1926), 193.
Science quotes on:  |  Centre (31)  |  Chain (51)  |  Event (222)  |  Hide (70)  |  Life (1870)  |  Point (584)  |  Something (718)  |  Spreading (5)

More than the diamond Koh-i-noor, which glitters among their crown jewels, they prize the dull pebble which is wiser than a man, whose poles turn themselves to the poles of the world, and whose axis is parallel to the axis of the world. Now, their toys are steam and galvanism.
English Traits (1856), 47. The “dull pebble” refers to lodestone and its magnetic properties.
Science quotes on:  |  Axis (9)  |  Crown (39)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dull (58)  |  Dullness (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Magnetic Field (7)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Pole (49)  |  Prize (13)  |  Steam (81)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Toy (22)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turning (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

Of … habitable worlds, such as the Earth, all which we may suppose to be of a terrestrial or terraqueous nature, and filled with beings of the human species, subject to mortality, it may not be amiss in this place to compute how many may he conceived within our finite view every clear Star-light night. … In all together then we may safely reckon 170,000,000, and yet be much within compass, exclusive Of the Comets which I judge to be by far the most numerous part of the creation.
In The Universe and the Stars: Being an Original Theory on the Visible Creation, Founded on the Laws of Nature (1750, 1837), 131-132.
Science quotes on:  |  Being (1276)  |  Clear (111)  |  Comet (65)  |  Compute (19)  |  Creation (350)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exclusive (29)  |  Finite (60)  |  Habitable (3)  |  Human (1512)  |  Judge (114)  |  Light (635)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Night (133)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Reckon (31)  |  Species (435)  |  Star (460)  |  Starlight (5)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Terrestrial (62)  |  Together (392)  |  View (496)  |  World (1850)

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
In Circulations: Webster's Quotations, Facts and Phrases, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Circular (19)  |  Circular Motion (7)  |  Course (413)  |  Height (33)  |  Long (778)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  River (140)  |  Sea (326)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Travel (125)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wonder (251)

Quite distinct from the theoretical question of the manner in which mathematics will rescue itself from the perils to which it is exposed by its own prolific nature is the practical problem of finding means of rendering available for the student the results which have been already accumulated, and making it possible for the learner to obtain some idea of the present state of the various departments of mathematics. … The great mass of mathematical literature will be always contained in Journals and Transactions, but there is no reason why it should not be rendered far more useful and accessible than at present by means of treatises or higher text-books. The whole science suffers from want of avenues of approach, and many beautiful branches of mathematics are regarded as difficult and technical merely because they are not easily accessible. … I feel very strongly that any introduction to a new subject written by a competent person confers a real benefit on the whole science. The number of excellent text-books of an elementary kind that are published in this country makes it all the more to be regretted that we have so few that are intended for the advanced student. As an example of the higher kind of text-book, the want of which is so badly felt in many subjects, I may mention the second part of Prof. Chrystal’s Algebra published last year, which in a small compass gives a great mass of valuable and fundamental knowledge that has hitherto been beyond the reach of an ordinary student, though in reality lying so close at hand. I may add that in any treatise or higher text-book it is always desirable that references to the original memoirs should be given, and, if possible, short historic notices also. I am sure that no subject loses more than mathematics by any attempt to dissociate it from its history.
In Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science, Section A (1890), Nature, 42, 466.
Science quotes on:  |  Accessible (27)  |  Accumulate (30)  |  Add (42)  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Already (226)  |  Approach (112)  |  At Hand (7)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Available (80)  |  Avenue (14)  |  Badly (32)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Book (413)  |  Branch (155)  |  George Chrystal (8)  |  Close (77)  |  Competent (20)  |  Confer (11)  |  Contain (68)  |  Country (269)  |  Department (93)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Dissociate (2)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Easily (36)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Example (98)  |  Excellent (29)  |  Expose (28)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Far (158)  |  Feel (371)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Give (208)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Historic (7)  |  History (716)  |  Hitherto (6)  |  Idea (881)  |  Intend (18)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Journal (31)  |  Kind (564)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Last (425)  |  Learner (10)  |  Lie (370)  |  Literature (116)  |  Lose (165)  |  Lying (55)  |  Making (300)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Memoir (13)  |  Mention (84)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  New (1273)  |  Notice (81)  |  Number (710)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Original (61)  |  Part (235)  |  Peril (9)  |  Person (366)  |  Possible (560)  |  Practical (225)  |  Present (630)  |  Problem (731)  |  Prof (2)  |  Prolific (5)  |  Publish (42)  |  Question (649)  |  Reach (286)  |  Real (159)  |  Reality (274)  |  Reason (766)  |  Reference (33)  |  Regard (312)  |  Regret (31)  |  Render (96)  |  Rescue (14)  |  Result (700)  |  Second (66)  |  Short (200)  |  Small (489)  |  State (505)  |  Strongly (9)  |  Student (317)  |  Study And Research In Mathematics (61)  |  Subject (543)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Technical (53)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Transaction (13)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Useful (260)  |  Value (393)  |  Various (205)  |  Want (504)  |  Whole (756)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Write (250)  |  Year (963)

Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endangers its cargo.
Proposed summation written for the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), in Genevieve Forbes Herrick and John Origen Herrick ,The Life of William Jennings Bryan (1925), 405. This speech was prepared for delivery at the trial, but was never heard there, as both sides mutually agreed to forego arguments to the jury.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Building (158)  |  Construct (129)  |  Control (182)  |  Danger (127)  |  Element (322)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Force (497)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Human (1512)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Magnificence (14)  |  Magnificent (46)  |  Misuse (12)  |  Moral (203)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Protect (65)  |  Protection (41)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Rudder (4)  |  Ship (69)  |  Society (350)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Storm (56)  |  Supply (100)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Toss (8)  |  Unproven (5)  |  Vessel (63)

The comparatively small progress toward universal acceptance made by the metric system seems to be due not altogether to aversion to a change of units, but also to a sort of irrepressible conflict between the decimal and binary systems of subdivision.
[Remarking in 1892 (!) that although decimal fractions were introduced about 1585, America retains measurements in halves, quarters, eights and sixteenths in various applications such as fractions of an inch, the compass or used by brokers.]
'Octonary Numeration', Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society (1892),1, 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceptance (56)  |  America (143)  |  Application (257)  |  Aversion (9)  |  Binary (12)  |  Change (639)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Decimal (21)  |  Due (143)  |  Fraction (16)  |  Inch (10)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Metric System (6)  |  Progress (492)  |  Retain (57)  |  Small (489)  |  System (545)  |  Unit (36)  |  Universal (198)  |  Various (205)

The feudal model of agriculture collided, first, with environmental limits and then with a massive external shock – the Black Death. After that, there was a demographic shock: too few workers for the land, which raised their wages and made the old feudal obligation system impossible to enforce. The labour shortage also forced technological innovation. The new technologies that underpinned the rise of merchant capitalism were the ones that stimulated commerce (printing and accountancy), the creation of tradeable wealth (mining, the compass and fast ships) and productivity (mathematics and the scientific method).
In 'The End of Capitalism Has Begun', The Guardian (17 Jul 2015) (online).
Science quotes on:  |  Accountant (4)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Black Death (2)  |  Capitalism (12)  |  Commerce (23)  |  Creation (350)  |  Environment (239)  |  Innovation (49)  |  Labor (200)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mining (22)  |  Plague (42)  |  Printing (25)  |  Productivity (23)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shortage (6)  |  Stimulate (21)  |  Technology (281)  |  Trade (34)  |  Wage (7)  |  Wealth (100)  |  Worker (34)

The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.
In 'Thoughts On Various Subjects' (1727), collected in The Works of Jonathan Swift (1746), Vol. 1, 309.
Science quotes on:  |  Dullness (4)  |  German (37)  |  Germany (16)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Gunpowder (18)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Invention (400)  |  Nation (208)  |  Printing (25)  |  Produced (187)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)

The Patent-Office Commissioner knows that all machines in use have been invented and re-invented over and over; that the mariner’s compass, the boat, the pendulum, glass, movable types, the kaleidoscope, the railway, the power-loom, etc., have been many times found and lost, from Egypt, China and Pompeii down; and if we have arts which Rome wanted, so also Rome had arts which we have lost; that the invention of yesterday of making wood indestructible by means of vapor of coal-oil or paraffine was suggested by the Egyptian method which has preserved its mummy-cases four thousand years.
In Lecture, second in a series given at Freeman Place Chapel, Boston (Mar 1859), 'Quotation and Originality', Letters and Social Aims (1875, 1917), 178-179.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Boat (17)  |  China (27)  |  Coal (64)  |  Commissioner (2)  |  Down (455)  |  Egypt (31)  |  Find (1014)  |  Glass (94)  |  Indestructible (12)  |  Invention (400)  |  Kaleidoscope (5)  |  Know (1538)  |  Loom (20)  |  Lost (34)  |  Machine (271)  |  Make (25)  |  Making (300)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Method (531)  |  Movable (2)  |  Mummy (7)  |  Office (71)  |  Oil (67)  |  Patent (34)  |  Patent Office (3)  |  Pendulum (17)  |  Pompeii (6)  |  Power (771)  |  Power Loom (2)  |  Preservation (39)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Rome (19)  |  Suggest (38)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Type (171)  |  Use (771)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Want (504)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)  |  Yesterday (37)

The really profound changes in human life all have their ultimate origin in knowledge pursued for its own sake. The use of the compass was not introduced into Europe till the end of the twelfth century A.D., more than three thousand years after its first use in China. The importance which the science of electromagnetism has since assumed in every department of human life is due not to the superior practical bias of Europeans, but to the fact that in the West electrical and magnetic phenomena were studied by men who were dominated by abstract theoretic interests.
In Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 32-33.
Science quotes on:  |  12th Century (3)  |  Abstract (141)  |  Change (639)  |  China (27)  |  Electromagnetism (19)  |  Europe (50)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Origin (250)  |  Practical (225)  |  Profound (105)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Sake (61)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Ultimate (152)

The veneration, wherewith Men are imbued for what they call Nature, has been a discouraging impediment to the Empire of Man over the inferior Creatures of God. For many have not only look’d upon it, as an impossible thing to compass, but as something impious to attempt.
A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature Made in an Essay, Address'd to a Friend (1686), 18-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Call (781)  |  Creature (242)  |  God (776)  |  Impediment (12)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Something (718)  |  Thing (1914)

They had neither compass, nor astronomical instruments, nor any of the appliances of our time for finding their position at sea; they could only sail by the sun, moon, and stars, and it seems incomprehensible how for days and weeks, when these were invisible, they were able to find their course through fog and bad weather; but they found it, and in the open craft of the Norwegian Vikings, with their square sails, fared north and west over the whole ocean, from Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen to Greenland, Baffin Bay, Newfoundland, and North America.
In northern mists: Arctic exploration in early times - Volume 1 - Page 248 https://books.google.com/books?id=I1ugAAAAMAAJ Fridtjof Nansen - 1911
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Appliance (9)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Bad (185)  |  Bay (6)  |  Course (413)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fog (10)  |  Greenland (2)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Moon (252)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Open (277)  |  Sail (37)  |  Sea (326)  |  Square (73)  |  Star (460)  |  Stars (304)  |  Sun (407)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Weather (49)  |  Week (73)  |  Whole (756)

Those who are enamoured of practice without science, are like the pilot who embarks in a ship without rudder or compass and who is never certain where he is going.
From original Italian: “Quelli che s'innamorano della pratica senza la diligenza, ovvero scienza, per dir meglio,sono come i nocchieri, che entrano in mare sopra nave senza timone o bussola, che mai hanno certezza dove si vadano,” in Trattato Della Pittura (Treatise on Painting) (1817), Part 2, 69. Translated in Anthony Lejeune, The Concise Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (2001), 234.
Science quotes on:  |  Certain (557)  |  Embark (7)  |  Love (328)  |  Never (1089)  |  Pilot (13)  |  Practice (212)  |  Rudder (4)  |  Sail (37)  |  Ship (69)

We are like the explorers of a great continent, who have penetrated its margins in most points of the compass and have mapped the major mountain chains and rivers. There are still innumerable details to fill in, but the endless horizons no longer exist.
Stating his belief that within a generation or two, scientific progress was likely to halt. In Presidential Address (28 Dec 1970) to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 'Science: Endless Horizons or Golden Age?', Science (8 Jan 1971), 171, No. 3866, 24. Quoted in obituary by Douglas Martin, New York Times (20 Jan 2005).
Science quotes on:  |  Continent (79)  |  Detail (150)  |  Endless (60)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Explorer (30)  |  Fill (67)  |  Great (1610)  |  Halt (10)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Major (88)  |  Map (50)  |  Margin (6)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Penetration (18)  |  Point (584)  |  River (140)  |  Scientific Progress (14)  |  Still (614)

We find that light acquires properties which are relative only to the sides of the ray,–which are the same for the north and south sides of the ray, (using the points of the compass for description’s sake only) and which are different when we go from the north and south to the east or to the west sides of the ray. I shall give the name of poles to these sides of the ray, and shall call polarization the modification which gives to light these properties relative to these poles.
(1811). As quoted in William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), 336.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquire (46)  |  Call (781)  |  Different (595)  |  Find (1014)  |  Light (635)  |  Modification (57)  |  Name (359)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Point (584)  |  Polarization (4)  |  Pole (49)  |  Property (177)  |  Ray (115)  |  Relative (42)  |  Sake (61)  |  Side (236)  |  South (39)

We have one of his [Newton’s] college memorandum-books, which is highly interesting. The following are some of the entries: “Drills, gravers, a hone, a hammer, and a mandril, 5s.;” “a magnet, 16s.;” “compasses, 2s.;” “glass bubbles, 4s.;” “at the tavern several other times, £1;” “spent on my cousin, 12s.;” “on other acquaintances, 10s.;” “Philosophical Intelligences, 9s. 6d.;” “lost at cards twice, 15s.;” “at the tavern twice, 3s. 6d.;” “to three prisms, £3;” “four ounces of putty, 1s. 4d.;” “Bacon’s Miscellanies, 1s. 6d.;” “a bible binding, 3s.;” “for oranges to my sister, 4s. 2d.;” “for aquafortis, sublimate, oyle pink, fine silver, antimony, vinegar, spirit of wine, white lead, salt of tartar, £2;” “Theatrum chemicum, £1 8s.”
In 'Sir Isaac Newton', People’s Book of Biography: Or, Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries (1868), 255.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Antimony (7)  |  Bacon (4)  |  Bible (105)  |  Binding (9)  |  Book (413)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Card (5)  |  College (71)  |  Cousin (12)  |  Drill (12)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Hone (3)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Interesting (153)  |  Lead (391)  |  Lose (165)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Orange (15)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ounce (9)  |  Philosophical (24)  |  Pound (15)  |  Prism (8)  |  Putty (2)  |  Salt (48)  |  Silver (49)  |  Sister (8)  |  Spend (97)  |  Spent (85)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Sublimate (4)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vinegar (7)  |  White (132)  |  Wine (39)

Whatever compass of mind one may have, he is capable of only one great passion.
From Blaise Pascal, O.W. Wright (trans.), 'Discourse on the Passion of Love', collected in Charles W. Eliot (ed.), The Harvard Classics (1910), Vol. 48, 418. Also widely found translated as, “However vast a man’s spiritual resources, he is capable of but one great passion.” (Webmaster has not yet found a primary source for the translator of this wording. Can you help?) From the original French, “Quelque étendue d’esprit que l’on ait, l’on n’est capable que d’une grande passion,” Discours sur les passions de l'amour (1653) collected in Œuvres Complètes de Blaise Pascal (1866), Vol. 2, 50.
Science quotes on:  |  Capable (174)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Passion (121)  |  Resource (74)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Vast (188)  |  Whatever (234)


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.