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: “Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index M > Category: Mineralogy

Mineralogy Quotes (24 quotes)
Minerology Quotes

Aluminum is at once as white as silver, as incorrodible as gold, as tenacious as iron, as fusible as copper, and as light as glass. It is easily worked; it is widely spread in nature, alumina forming the bases of most rocks; it is three times lighter than iron; in short, it seems to have been created expressly to furnish material for our projectile!
Planning a spacecraft to be fired from a cannon to the moon. In From the Earth to the Moon (1865, 1890), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Base (120)  |  Copper (25)  |  Corrosion (4)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Glass (94)  |  Gold (101)  |  Iron (99)  |  Light (635)  |  Material (366)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ore (14)  |  Projectile (3)  |  Rock (176)  |  Short (200)  |  Silver (49)  |  Spread (86)  |  Time (1911)  |  White (132)  |  Work (1402)

And this is a miracle of nature in part known, namely, that iron follows the part of a magnet that touches it, and flies from the other part of the same magnet. And the iron turns itself after moving to the part of the heavens conformed to the part of the magnet which it touched.
Science quotes on:  |  Follow (389)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Iron (99)  |  Known (453)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Touch (146)  |  Turn (454)

As for the earth, out of it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire. Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold.
Bible
Bible: English Standard Version, Job Chap 28, verses 5-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Bread (42)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Fire (203)  |  Geology (240)  |  Gold (101)  |  Place (192)  |  Sapphire (4)  |  Stone (168)  |  Turn (454)  |  Underneath (4)

As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.
An Attempt to Establish a Pure Scientific System of Mineralogy (1814), trans. J. Black, 48.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Body (557)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Classification (102)  |  Compound (117)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Derive (70)  |  Electrochemistry (5)  |  Follow (389)  |  Ingredient (16)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Negative (66)  |  Order (638)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Positive (98)  |  Potassium (12)  |  Principle (530)

Concerning the alchemist, Mamugnano, no one harbors doubts any longer about his daily experiments in changing quicksilver into gold. It was realized that his craft did not go beyond one pound of quicksilver… . Thus the belief is now held that his allegations to produce a number of millions have been a great fraud.
Anonymous
'Further Successes by Bragadini. From Vienna on the 26th day of January 1590'. As quoted in George Tennyson Matthews (ed.) News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe: The Fugger Newsletters (1959), 179. A handwritten collection of news reports (1568-1604) by the powerful banking and merchant house of Fugger in Ausburg.
Science quotes on:  |  Alchemist (23)  |  Belief (615)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Change (639)  |  Daily (91)  |  Doubt (314)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Mamugnano (2)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Million (124)  |  Number (710)  |  Produce (117)  |  Quicksilver (8)

Enhydros is a variety of geode. The name comes from the water it contains. It is always round, smooth, and very white but will sway back and forth when moved. Inside it is a liquid just as in an egg, as Pliny, our Albertus, and others believed, and it may even drip water. Liquid bitumen, sometimes with a pleasant odor, is found enclosed in rock just as in a vase.
As translated by Mark Chance Bandy and Jean A. Bandy from the first Latin Edition of 1546 in De Natura Fossilium: (Textbook of Mineralogy) (2004), 104. Originally published by Geological Society of America as a Special Paper (1955). There are other translations with different wording.
Science quotes on:  |  Saint Magnus Albertus (11)  |  Back (395)  |  Belief (615)  |  Contain (68)  |  Drip (2)  |  Egg (71)  |  Enclose (2)  |  Find (1014)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Name (359)  |  Odor (11)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pleasant (22)  |  Pliny the Elder (18)  |  Rock (176)  |  Round (26)  |  Smooth (34)  |  Sway (5)  |  Variety (138)  |  Water (503)  |  White (132)  |  Will (2350)

Geology is intimately related to almost all the physical sciences, as is history to the moral. An historian should, if possible, be at once profoundly acquainted with ethics, politics, jurisprudence, the military art, theology; in a word, with all branches of knowledge, whereby any insight into human affairs, or into the moral and intellectual nature of man, can be obtained. It would be no less desirable that a geologist should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, zoology, comparative anatomy, botany; in short, in every science relating to organic and inorganic nature. With these accomplishments the historian and geologist would rarely fail to draw correct and philosophical conclusions from the various monuments transmitted to them of former occurrences.
Principles of Geology (1830-3), Vol. 1, 2-3.
Science quotes on:  |  Accomplishment (102)  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Art (680)  |  Botany (63)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Draw (140)  |  Ethic (39)  |  Ethics (53)  |  Fail (191)  |  Former (138)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Geology (240)  |  Historian (59)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Insight (107)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Military (45)  |  Monument (45)  |  Moral (203)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nature Of Man (8)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Occurrence (53)  |  Organic (161)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Politics (122)  |  Possible (560)  |  Short (200)  |  Theology (54)  |  Various (205)  |  Word (650)  |  Zoology (38)

Hence dusky Iron sleeps in dark abodes,
And ferny foliage nestles in the nodes;
Till with wide lungs the panting bellows blow,
And waked by fire the glittering torrents flow;
Quick whirls the wheel, the ponderous hammer falls,
Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls,
Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines,
Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines;
Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal,
And turn to adamant the hissing Steel.
Science quotes on:  |  Adamant (3)  |  Anvil (3)  |  Bellows (5)  |  Blow (45)  |  Cold (115)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dusky (4)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flow (89)  |  Foliage (6)  |  Follow (389)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Hammer (26)  |  Ingot (2)  |  Iron (99)  |  Lung (37)  |  Mass (160)  |  Refine (8)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Sparkling (7)  |  Steel (23)  |  Stroke (19)  |  Turn (454)  |  Wall (71)  |  Wave (112)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Wide (97)

It is strange, but rocks, properly chosen and polished, can be as beautiful as flowers, and much more durable.
Epigraph in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 159.
Science quotes on:  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Choice (114)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Durable (7)  |  Flower (112)  |  More (2558)  |  Polish (17)  |  Rock (176)  |  Strange (160)

July 11, 1656. Came home by Greenwich ferry, where I saw Sir J. Winter’s project of charring sea-coal to burn out the sulphur and render it sweet [coke]. He did it by burning the coals in such earthen pots as the glassmen melt their metal, so firing them without consuming them, using a bar of iron in each crucible, or pot, which bar has a hook at one end, that so the coals being melted in a furnace with other crude sea-coals under them, may be drawn out of the pots sticking to the iron, whence they are beaten off in great half-exhausted cinders, which being rekindled make a clear pleasant chamber-fire deprived of their sulphur and arsenic malignity. What success it may have, time will discover.
Science quotes on:  |  Arsenic (10)  |  Being (1276)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Cinder (6)  |  Coal (64)  |  Coke (4)  |  Crucible (8)  |  Crude (32)  |  Discover (571)  |  End (603)  |  Fire (203)  |  Furnace (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Home (184)  |  Iron (99)  |  Metal (88)  |  Other (2233)  |  Project (77)  |  Render (96)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Success (327)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Sweet (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)  |  Winter (46)

Life is the most important thing about the world, the most important thing about life is evolution. Thus, by consciously seeking what is most meaningful, I moved from poetry to mineralogy to paleontology to evolution.
This View of Life: the World of an Evolutionist (1964), 27-28.
Science quotes on:  |  Evolution (635)  |  Important (229)  |  Life (1870)  |  Meaningful (19)  |  Most (1728)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Seek (218)  |  Thing (1914)  |  World (1850)

Meanwhile I flatter myself with so much success, that: students... will not be so easily mistaken in the subjects of the mineral kingdom, as has happened with me and others in following former systems; and I also hope to obtain some protectors against those who are so possessed with the figuromania, and so addicted to the surface of things, that they are shocked at the boldness of calling a marble a limestone, and of placing the Porphyry amongst the Saxa.
An Essay Towards a System of Mineralogy (1770), trans. G. Von Engestrom, xxi.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Boldness (11)  |  Former (138)  |  Happen (282)  |  Happened (88)  |  Hope (321)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Limestone (6)  |  Marble (21)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Myself (211)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Other (2233)  |  Possess (157)  |  Shock (38)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Surface (223)  |  System (545)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)

No collateral science had profited so much by palæontology as that which teaches the structure and mode of formation of the earth’s crust, with the relative position, time, and order of formation of its constituent stratified and unstratified parts. Geology has left her old hand-maiden mineralogy to rest almost wholly on the broad shoulders of her young and vigorous offspring, the science of organic remains.
In article 'Palæontology' contributed to Encyclopædia Britannica (8th ed., 1859), Vol. 17, 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Broad (28)  |  Collateral (4)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Crust (43)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Formation (100)  |  Geology (240)  |  Handmaiden (2)  |  Mode (43)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Old (499)  |  Order (638)  |  Organic (161)  |  Paleontology (32)  |  Position (83)  |  Profit (56)  |  Relative (42)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remains (9)  |  Rest (287)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Structure (365)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vigorous (21)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Young (253)

Sand in reality is nothing else than very small stones.
An Essay Towards a System of Mineralogy (1770), trans. G. Von Engestrom, xiv.
Science quotes on:  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Reality (274)  |  Sand (63)  |  Small (489)  |  Stone (168)

Sarcophagus is a stone that devours dead bodies, for in Greek σάρκος means “flesh” and φαγώ “eating”. Some of the ancients first made coffins for the dead of this stone because in the space of thirty days it consumed the dead… . For this reason stone monuments are called sarcophagi.
From De Mineralibus (c.1261-1263), as translated by Dorothy Wyckoff, Book of Minerals (1967), 116.
Science quotes on:  |  Ancient (198)  |  Body (557)  |  Call (781)  |  Coffin (7)  |  Consume (13)  |  Day (43)  |  Dead (65)  |  Devour (29)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  First (1302)  |  Flesh (28)  |  Greek (109)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Monument (45)  |  Nomenclature (159)  |  Reason (766)  |  Sarcophagus (2)  |  Space (523)  |  Stone (168)

The essence of the simplest mineral phenomenon is as completely unknown to chemists and physicists today as is the essence of intellectual phenomenon to physiologists.
Science quotes on:  |  Chemist (169)  |  Completely (137)  |  Essence (85)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Physiologist (31)  |  Today (321)  |  Unknown (195)

The naturalists, you know, distribute the history of nature into three kingdoms or departments: zoology, botany, mineralogy. Ideology, or mind, however, occupies so much space in the field of science, that we might perhaps erect it into a fourth kingdom or department. But inasmuch as it makes a part of the animal construction only, it would be more proper to subdivide zoology into physical and moral.
Letter (24 Mar 1824) to Mr. Woodward. Collected in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence (1854), 339.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Botany (63)  |  Construction (114)  |  Department (93)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Field (378)  |  History (716)  |  Ideology (15)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Know (1538)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Naturalist (79)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Occupy (27)  |  Physical (518)  |  Proper (150)  |  Space (523)  |  Zoology (38)

The Spaniards plundered Peru for its gold, which the Inca aristocracy had collected as we might collect stamps, with the touch of Midas. Gold for greed, gold for splendor, gold for adornment, gold for reverence, gold for power, sacrificial gold, life-giving gold, gold for tenderness, barbaric gold, voluptuous gold.
Science quotes on:  |  Adornment (4)  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Collect (19)  |  Gold (101)  |  Greed (17)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Giving (2)  |  Peru (3)  |  Plunder (6)  |  Power (771)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Spaniard (3)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Tenderness (2)  |  Touch (146)  |  Voluptuous (3)

The volume now in press will make the new gospel of geology and mineralogy, and if I live to complete my mineralogical text-book, I shall do for the mineral what Darwin did for the organic world.
Letter to a friend (1886), as quoted in Paper read before the American Philosophical Society (1 Apr 1898) by James Douglas, printed as A Memoir of Thomas Sterry Hunt (1898), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Book (413)  |  Complete (209)  |  Darwin (14)  |  Do (1905)  |  Geology (240)  |  Gospel (8)  |  Live (650)  |  Mineral (66)  |  New (1273)  |  Organic (161)  |  Text-Book (5)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

There are reported to be six species of metals, namely, gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, and lead. Actually there are more. Mercury is a metal although we differ on this point with the chemists. Plumbum cinereum (gray lead) which we call bisemutum was unknown to the older Greek writers. On the other hand, Ammonius writes correctly many metals are unknown to us, as well as many plants and animals.
As translated by Mark Chance Bandy and Jean A. Bandy from the first Latin Edition of 1546 in De Natura Fossilium: (Textbook of Mineralogy) (2004), 19. Originally published by Geological Society of America as a Special Paper (1955). There are other translations with different wording.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bismuth (7)  |  Call (781)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Copper (25)  |  Correct (95)  |  Differ (88)  |  Gold (101)  |  Greek (109)  |  Iron (99)  |  Lead (391)  |  Mercury (54)  |  Metal (88)  |  More (2558)  |  On The Other Hand (40)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plant (320)  |  Point (584)  |  Silver (49)  |  Species (435)  |  Tin (18)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Write (250)  |  Writer (90)

To learn… the ordinary arrangement of the different strata of minerals in the earth, to know from their habitual colocations and proximities, where we find one mineral; whether another, for which we are seeking, may be expected to be in its neighborhood, is useful.
In The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1854), Vol. 7, 443.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrangement (93)  |  Different (595)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Expect (203)  |  Find (1014)  |  Know (1538)  |  Learn (672)  |  Location (15)  |  Mineral (66)  |  Neighborhood (12)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Proximity (3)  |  Strata (37)  |  Useful (260)

We say in general that the material of all stone is either some form of Earth or some form of Water. For one or the other of these elements predominates in stones; and even in stones in which some form of Water seems to predominate, something of Earth is also important. Evidence of this is that nearly all kinds of stones sink in water.
From De Mineralibus (c.1261-1263), as translated by Dorothy Wyckoff, Book of Minerals (1967), 12.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Form (976)  |  General (521)  |  Important (229)  |  Kind (564)  |  Material (366)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predominate (7)  |  Say (989)  |  Sink (38)  |  Something (718)  |  Stone (168)  |  Water (503)

We say that, in very truth the productive cause is a mineralizing power which is active in forming stones… . This power, existing in the particular material of stones, has two instruments according to different natural conditions.
One of these is heat, which is active in drawing out moisture and digesting the material and bringing about its solidification into the form of stone, in Earth that has been acted upon by unctuous moisture… .
The other instrument is in watery moist material that has been acted upon by earthy dryness; and this [instrument] is cold, which … is active in expelling moisture.
From De Mineralibus (c.1261-1263), as translated by Dorothy Wyckoff, Book of Minerals (1967), 22.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Act (278)  |  Active (80)  |  Cause (561)  |  Cold (115)  |  Condition (362)  |  Different (595)  |  Digest (10)  |  Drawing (56)  |  Dryness (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expel (4)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Heat (180)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Material (366)  |  Mineralize (2)  |  Moist (13)  |  Moisture (21)  |  Natural (810)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particular (80)  |  Power (771)  |  Productive (37)  |  Say (989)  |  Solidification (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Two (936)

When first discovered, [aluminum was a precious metal that] cost about 270 dollars a pound; then it fell to 27 dollars, and today a pound of aluminum is worth about nine dollars.
Answering the question, “Is not aluminum rather expensive?” to a fictional moon shot committee. In Jules Verne, Aaron Parrett (ed.) and Edward Roth (trans.), From the Earth to the Moon (1865, 2005), 50. In the original French edition, the costs were given in francs as about 1500, 150 and 48.75, respectively.
Science quotes on:  |  Aluminum (15)  |  Cost (94)  |  Discover (571)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Expensive (10)  |  First (1302)  |  Metal (88)  |  Pound (15)  |  Precious (43)  |  Today (321)  |  Worth (172)


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.