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: “Politics is more difficult than physics.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index N > Category: Nobility

Nobility Quotes (5 quotes)

Both died, ignored by most; they neither sought nor found public favour, for high roads never lead there. Laurent and Gerhardt never left such roads, were never tempted to peruse those easy successes which, for strongly marked characters, offer neither allure nor gain. Their passion was for the search for truth; and, preferring their independence to their advancement, their convictions to their interests, they placed their love for science above that of their worldly goods; indeed above that for life itself, for death was the reward for their pains. Rare example of abnegation, sublime poverty that deserves the name nobility, glorious death that France must not forget!
'Éloge de Laurent et Gerhardt', Moniteur Scientifique (1862), 4, 473-83, trans. Alan J. Rocke.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Allure (4)  |  Both (496)  |  Character (259)  |  Conviction (100)  |  Death (406)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Easy (213)  |  Fame (51)  |  Forget (125)  |  Gain (146)  |  Charles Gerhardt (3)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Good (906)  |  High (370)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Independence (37)  |  Interest (416)  |  Auguste Laurent (5)  |  Lead (391)  |  Life (1870)  |  Love (328)  |  Marked (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Name (359)  |  Never (1089)  |  Offer (142)  |  Pain (144)  |  Passion (121)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Rare (94)  |  Reward (72)  |  Search (175)  |  Sublime (50)  |  Success (327)  |  Truth (1109)

Geology is rapidly taking its place as an introduction to the higher history of man. If the author has sought to exalt a favorite science, it has been with the desire that man—in whom geological history had its consummation, the prophecies of the successive ages their fulfilment—might better comprehend his own nobility and the true purpose of his existence.
Concluding remark in Preface (1 Nov 1862), in Manual of Geology, Treating of the Principles of the Science (1863), ix.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Author (175)  |  Better (493)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Desire (212)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Existence (481)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fulfillment (20)  |  Geology (240)  |  History (716)  |  Introduction (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Prophecy (14)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Successive (73)

In such sad circumstances I but see myself exalted by my own enemies, for in order to defeat some small works of mine they try to make the whole rational medicine and anatomy fall, as if I were myself these noble disciplines.
'Letter to Marescotti about the dispute with Sbaraglia and others, 1689(?)', in H. B. Adelmann (ed.), The Correspondence of Marcello Malpighi (1975), Vol. 4, 1561.
Science quotes on:  |  Anatomy (75)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Exalt (29)  |  Exaltation (5)  |  Exalted (22)  |  Fall (243)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mine (78)  |  Myself (211)  |  Noble (93)  |  Order (638)  |  Rational (95)  |  Rationality (25)  |  Sadness (36)  |  See (1094)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Small (489)  |  Try (296)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

It goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging, this majestic roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable, in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god—the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Hamlet (1601), II, ii.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Admirable (20)  |  Air (366)  |  Angel (47)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apprehension (26)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Brave (16)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Congregation (3)  |  Delight (111)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Dust (68)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Excellence (40)  |  Express (192)  |  Faculty (76)  |  Fire (203)  |  Form (976)  |  Foul (15)  |  Frame (26)  |  God (776)  |  Golden (47)  |  Heavily (14)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Look (584)  |  Man (2252)  |  Most (1728)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paragon (4)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Promontory (3)  |  Quintessence (4)  |  Reason (766)  |  Roof (14)  |  Say (989)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Why (491)  |  Woman (160)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

Once a sage asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich, whilst the rich are not inclined to call at the doors of scholars. “The scholars” he answered , “are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science.”
As translated by Edward C. Sachau, in Alberuni’s India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India about A.D. 1030 (1910), Vol. 1, 188.
Science quotes on:  |  Aware (36)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Money (178)  |  Rich (66)  |  Sage (25)  |  Scholar (52)


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.