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: “Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index C > Category: Crystallize

Crystallize Quotes (12 quotes)

A demonstrative and convincing proof that an acid does consist of pointed parts is, that not only all acid salts do Crystallize into edges, but all Dissolutions of different things, caused by acid liquors, do assume this figure in their Crystallization; these Crystalls consist of points differing both in length and bigness from one another, and this diversity must be attributed to the keener or blunter edges of the different sorts of acids
A Course of Chymistry (1675), trans. W. Harris (1686), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Both (496)  |  Consist (223)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Demonstrative (14)  |  Different (595)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Diversity (75)  |  Do (1905)  |  Edge (51)  |  Figure (162)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Proof (304)  |  Salt (48)  |  Thing (1914)

It is perhaps a law of nature that when a species (or group) fits itself to a place not previously occupied, and in which it is subject to no opposition from beings of its own class, or where it attains so great a perfection as to be able easily to overcome all opposition, the character eventually loses its original plasticity, or tendency to vary, since improvement in such a case would be superfluous, and becomes, so to speak, crystallized in that form which continues thereafter unaltered. … [Such as] the humming-bird.
In The Naturalist in La Plata (1895), 40.
Science quotes on:  |  Attain (126)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bird (163)  |  Character (259)  |  Class (168)  |  Continue (179)  |  Ecology (81)  |  Eventually (64)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fit (139)  |  Form (976)  |  Great (1610)  |  Humming (5)  |  Hummingbird (4)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Nature (80)  |  Lose (165)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Niche (9)  |  Occupied (45)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Opposition (49)  |  Overcome (40)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Plasticity (7)  |  Speak (240)  |  Species (435)  |  Subject (543)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Tendency (110)

It will be! the mass is working clearer!
Conviction gathers, truer, nearer!
The mystery which for Man in Nature lies
We dare to test, by knowledge led;
And that which she was wont to organize
We crystallize, instead.
As spoken by character Wagner, in Johann Goethe and Bayard Taylr (trans.), Faust: A tragedy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated, in the original metres: The Second Part (1871), Act 2, Scene 2, Laboratory, 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Clearer (4)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Dare (55)  |  Gather (76)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lie (370)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mystery (188)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearer (45)  |  Organize (33)  |  Test (221)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Mathematics is crystallized clarity, precision personified, beauty distilled and rigorously sublimated.
In The American Mathematical Monthly (1949), 56, 19. Excerpted in John Ewing (ed,), A Century of Mathematics: Through the Eyes of the Monthly (1996), 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Beauty (313)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Distill (3)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Precision (72)  |  Rigorous (50)  |  Sublimate (4)

Mathematics vindicates the right … to stand in the front rank of the pioneers that search the real truth and find it crystallized forever in brilliant gems.
In Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics (1918), 194.
Science quotes on:  |  Brilliant (57)  |  Find (1014)  |  Forever (111)  |  Front (16)  |  Gem (17)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Rank (69)  |  Real (159)  |  Right (473)  |  Search (175)  |  Stand (284)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vindicate (4)

Ninety-nine and nine-tenths of the earth’s volume must forever remain invisible and untouchable. Because more than 97 per cent of it is too hot to crystallize, its body is extremely weak. The crust, being so thin, must bend, if, over wide areas, it becomes loaded with glacial ice, ocean water or deposits of sand and mud. It must bend in the opposite sense if widely extended loads of such material be removed. This accounts for … the origin of chains of high mountains … and the rise of lava to the earth’s surface.
Presidential speech to the Geological Society of America at Cambridge, Mass. (1932). As quoted in New York Times (20 Sep 1957), 23. Also summarized in Popular Mechanics (Apr 1933), 513.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Bend (13)  |  Body (557)  |  Chain (51)  |  Crust (43)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Deposit (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extend (129)  |  Forever (111)  |  Glacier (17)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Ice (58)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Lava (12)  |  Load (12)  |  Material (366)  |  More (2558)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Mud (26)  |  Must (1525)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Origin (250)  |  Remain (355)  |  Removal (12)  |  Rise (169)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sense (785)  |  Surface (223)  |  Water (503)  |  Weak (73)  |  Wide (97)

Oh! That the Chemist’s magic art
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!…
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source;
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
Referring to the Law of Gravitation. From Poem, 'On a Tear' (c.1813-15), in Samuel Rogers et al., The Poetical Works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montombery, Lamb, and Kirke White (1836), 101.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Course (413)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Guide (107)  |  Law (913)  |  Law Of Gravitation (23)  |  Magic (92)  |  Mold (37)  |  Orbit (85)  |  Planet (402)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Tear (48)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Trickle (2)

One can ask: “If I crystallize a virus to obtain a crystal consisting of the molecules that make up the virus, are those molecules lifeless or not?” … The properties of living organisms are those of aggregates of molecules. It’s very difficult to draw a line between molecules that are lifeless and molecules that are not lifeless.
From interview with Neil A. Campbell, in 'Crossing the Boundaries of Science', BioScience (Dec 1986), 36, No. 11, 738.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Ask (420)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Definition (238)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Draw (140)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Living (492)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Organism (231)  |  Virus (32)

We have reason not to be afraid of the machine, for there is always constructive change, the enemy of machines, making them change to fit new conditions.
We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.
We have been measuring too much in terms of the dollar. What we should do is think in terms of useful materials—things that will be of value to us in our daily life.
In 'Quotation Marks: Against Technocracy', New York Times (1 Han 1933), E4.
Science quotes on:  |  Afraid (24)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Change (639)  |  Circulation (27)  |  Competitor (4)  |  Condition (362)  |  Construction (114)  |  Constructive (15)  |  Crystallization (2)  |  Daily (91)  |  Daily Life (18)  |  Desire (212)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Dollar (22)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Fifty (17)  |  Fit (139)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherent (43)  |  Junk (6)  |  Last (425)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Making (300)  |  Material (366)  |  Measurement (178)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Need (320)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Present (630)  |  Production (190)  |  Quality (139)  |  Reason (766)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Taste (93)  |  Technocracy (2)  |  Ten (3)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Try (296)  |  Use (771)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Value (393)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)  |  Worth (172)  |  Year (963)

We must infer that a plant or animal of any species, is made up of special units, in all of which there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to aggregate into the form of that species: just as in the atoms of a salt, there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize in a particular way.
In The Principles of Biology (1872), Vol. 1, 181.
Science quotes on:  |  Aggregate (24)  |  Animal (651)  |  Aptitude (19)  |  Atom (381)  |  DNA (81)  |  Dwell (19)  |  Form (976)  |  Infer (12)  |  Intrinsic (18)  |  Must (1525)  |  Particular (80)  |  Plant (320)  |  Salt (48)  |  Special (188)  |  Species (435)  |  Unit (36)  |  Way (1214)

Where the untrained eye will see nothing but mire and dirt, Science will often reveal exquisite possibilities. The mud we tread under our feet in the street is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot and water. Separate the sand, however, as Ruskinn observes—let the atoms arrange themselves in peace according to their nature—and you have the opal. Separate the clay, and it becomes a white earth, fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still further purifies itself, you have a sapphire. Take the soot, and it properly treated it will give you a diamond. While lastly, the water, purified and distilled, will become a dew-drop, or crystallize into a lovely star. Or, again, you may see as you will in any shallow pool either the mud lying at the bottom, or the image of the heavens above.
The Pleasures of Life (1887, 2007), 63.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arrange (33)  |  Atom (381)  |  Become (821)  |  Dew (10)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dirt (17)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fit (139)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Image (97)  |  Lying (55)  |  Mixture (44)  |  Mud (26)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observe (179)  |  Peace (116)  |  Possibility (172)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Sand (63)  |  Sapphire (4)  |  See (1094)  |  Separate (151)  |  Soot (11)  |  Star (460)  |  Still (614)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Tread (17)  |  Untrained (2)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)

Wherever groups disclosed themselves, or could be introduced, simplicity crystallized out of comparative chaos.
In 'Groups and Matrices, an Excursion in the Practical, The Queen of the Sciences (1938), Chap. 6, 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Chaos (99)  |  Group Theory (5)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Wherever (51)


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.