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: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index N > Category: Niagara

Niagara Quotes (8 quotes)

[In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.
Speaking at convention of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Norwich (1935). As quoted in 'Science: One Against Darwin', Time (23 Sep 1935).
Science quotes on:  |  Antarctica (8)  |  Anticipate (20)  |  Average (89)  |  Blow (45)  |  Compare (76)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Fall (243)  |  Future (467)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Month (91)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Physicist (270)  |  Power (771)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  River (140)  |  Ton (25)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Water (503)  |  Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (41)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)

[The Niagara Falls] would be more impressive if it flowed the other way.
Quoted in 'Professors, Politics, and Palaver', Science (19 Aug 1977), 197, 742.
Science quotes on:  |  Fall (243)  |  Flow (89)  |  Impressive (27)  |  More (2558)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Opposite (110)  |  Other (2233)  |  Way (1214)

Astronomy affords the most extensive example of the connection of physical sciences. In it are combined the sciences of number and quantity, or rest and motion. In it we perceive the operation of a force which is mixed up with everything that exists in the heavens or on earth; which pervades every atom, rules the motion of animate and inanimate beings, and is a sensible in the descent of the rain-drop as in the falls of Niagara; in the weight of the air, as in the periods of the moon.
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1858), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Animate (8)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Combination (150)  |  Connection (171)  |  Descent (30)  |  Drop (77)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Everything (489)  |  Example (98)  |  Exist (458)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extensive (34)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Heavens (125)  |  Inanimate (18)  |  Mix (24)  |  Moon (252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Number (710)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perception (97)  |  Period (200)  |  Pervade (10)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physical Science (104)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Rain (70)  |  Raindrop (4)  |  Rest (287)  |  Rule (307)  |  Sensible (28)  |  Weight (140)

Etna presents us not merely with an image of the power of subterranean heat, but a record also of the vast period of time during which that power has been exerted. A majestic mountain has been produced by volcanic action, yet the time of which the volcanic forms the register, however vast, is found by the geologist to be of inconsiderable amount, even in the modern annals of the earth’s history. In like manner, the Falls of Niagara teach us not merely to appreciate the power of moving water, but furnish us at the same time with data for estimating the enormous lapse of ages during which that force has operated. A deep and long ravine has been excavated, and the river has required ages to accomplish the task, yet the same region affords evidence that the sum of these ages is as nothing, and as the work of yesterday, when compared to the antecedent periods, of which there are monuments in the same district.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 28-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Age (509)  |  Amount (153)  |  Appreciate (67)  |  Data (162)  |  Deep (241)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Erosion (20)  |  Etna (5)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fall (243)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Geologist (82)  |  Heat (180)  |  History (716)  |  Image (97)  |  Lava (12)  |  Long (778)  |  Merely (315)  |  Modern (402)  |  Monument (45)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Period (200)  |  Power (771)  |  Present (630)  |  Produced (187)  |  Ravine (5)  |  Record (161)  |  Register (22)  |  Required (108)  |  River (140)  |  Sum (103)  |  Task (152)  |  Teach (299)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vast (188)  |  Volcano (46)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yesterday (37)

From a drop of water a logician could predict an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.
In A Study in Scarlet (1887, 1892), 27.
Science quotes on:  |  Atlantic (8)  |  Chain (51)  |  Drop (77)  |  Great (1610)  |  Known (453)  |  Life (1870)  |  Link (48)  |  Logic (311)  |  Logician (18)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Predict (86)  |  Single (365)  |  Water (503)  |  Whenever (81)

However much we may enlarge our ideas of the time which has elapsed since the Niagara first began to drain the waters of the upper lakes, we have seen that this period was one only of a series, all belonging to the present zoological epoch; or that in which the living testaceous fauna, whether freshwater or marine, had already come into being. If such events can take place while the zoology of the earth remains almost stationary and unaltered, what ages may not be comprehended in those successive tertiary periods during which the Flora and Fauna of the globe have been almost entirely changed. Yet how subordinate a place in the long calendar of geological chronology do the successive tertiary periods themselves occupy! How much more enormous a duration must we assign to many antecedent revolutions of the earth and its inhabitants! No analogy can be found in the natural world to the immense scale of these divisions of past time, unless we contemplate the celestial spaces which have been measured by the astronomer.
Travels in North America (1845), Vol. 1, 51-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Already (226)  |  Analogy (76)  |  Astronomer (97)  |  Being (1276)  |  Belonging (36)  |  Calendar (9)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Chronology (9)  |  Division (67)  |  Do (1905)  |  Drain (12)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enlarge (37)  |  Epoch (46)  |  Event (222)  |  First (1302)  |  Freshwater (3)  |  Idea (881)  |  Immense (89)  |  Inhabitant (50)  |  Lake (36)  |  Living (492)  |  Long (778)  |  Marine Biology (24)  |  Marine Geology (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Natural (810)  |  Niagara Falls (4)  |  Past (355)  |  Period (200)  |  Present (630)  |  Remain (355)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Scale (122)  |  Series (153)  |  Space (523)  |  Stationary (11)  |  Successive (73)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  World (1850)  |  Zoology (38)

No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
In Living Under Tension Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Confined (3)  |  Dedicated (19)  |  Drive (61)  |  Focus (36)  |  Focused (2)  |  Gas (89)  |  Grow (247)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Power (771)  |  Steam (81)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned (2)

There is a story which shows his ready wit, dating from the meeting of the British Association in Canada before the war. Tizard and a colleague inadvertently crossed over into the United States, near Niagara. When challenged by a policeman, and not having their passports with them, they produced their British Association membership cards. When the policeman told them that “The American Government doesn't recognise British Science,” the lightning reply came from Tizard, “Oh, that's all right, neither does the British Government.”
In Studies of War, Nuclear and Conventional (1962), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Association (49)  |  British (42)  |  British Association (2)  |  Canada (6)  |  Colleague (51)  |  Government (116)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Membership (6)  |  Policeman (2)  |  Produced (187)  |  Recognise (14)  |  Reply (58)  |  Right (473)  |  Show (353)  |  State (505)  |  Story (122)  |  Sir Henry Tizard (5)  |  War (233)  |  Wit (61)


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.