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: “Genius is two percent inspiration, ninety-eight percent perspiration.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index P > Category: Pestilence

Pestilence Quotes (14 quotes)

A study of Disease—of Pestilences methodically prepared and deliberately launched upon man and beast—is certainly being pursued in the laboratories of more than one great country. Blight to destroy crops, Anthrax to slay horses and cattle, Plague to poison not armies but whole districts—such are the lines along which military science is remorselessly advancing.
'Shall We All Commit Suicide?'. Pall Mall (Sep 1924). Reprinted in Thoughts and Adventures (1932), 250.
Science quotes on:  |  Anthrax (2)  |  Army (35)  |  Beast (58)  |  Being (1276)  |  Biological Warfare (3)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Country (269)  |  Cow (42)  |  Crop (26)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Disease (340)  |  Great (1610)  |  Horse (78)  |  Laboratory (214)  |  Launch (21)  |  Man (2252)  |  Military (45)  |  Military Science (3)  |  More (2558)  |  Plague (42)  |  Poison (46)  |  Pursue (63)  |  Study (701)  |  Whole (756)

During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all sorts are rife on such occasions, and are readily believed, whether for good or evil.
From Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1841), Vol. 1, 170.
Science quotes on:  |  Belief (615)  |  Calamity (11)  |  Crazy (27)  |  Credulity (16)  |  End (603)  |  End Of The World (6)  |  Evil (122)  |  Fanatic (7)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Occasion (87)  |  Prophecy (14)  |  Ready (43)  |  Season (47)  |  Sort (50)  |  Time (1911)  |  World (1850)

Each pregnant Oak ten thousand acorns forms
Profusely scatter’d by autumnal storms;
Ten thousand seeds each pregnant poppy sheds
Profusely scatter’d from its waving heads;
The countless Aphides, prolific tribe,
With greedy trunks the honey’d sap imbibe;
Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big,
And pendent nations tenant every twig ...
—All these, increasing by successive birth,
Would each o’erpeople ocean, air, and earth.
So human progenies, if unrestrain’d,
By climate friended, and by food sustain’d,
O’er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread
Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed;
But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth,
Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth...
The births and deaths contend with equal strife,
And every pore of Nature teems with Life;
Which buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
And Earth’s vast surface kindles, as it rolls!
The Temple of Nature (1803), canto 4, lines 347-54, 367-74, 379-82, pages 156-60.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Birth (154)  |  Breathe (49)  |  Climate (102)  |  Countless (39)  |  Death (406)  |  Deluge (14)  |  Disease (340)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Egg (71)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Friend (180)  |  Honey (15)  |  Human (1512)  |  Kindle (9)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Life (1870)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Oak (16)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Poem (104)  |  Pole (49)  |  Roll (41)  |  Sea (326)  |  Seed (97)  |  Soil (98)  |  Spread (86)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Successive (73)  |  Superfluous (21)  |  Surface (223)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Tribe (26)  |  Trunk (23)  |  Twig (15)  |  Vast (188)  |  War (233)

Thomas Robert Malthus quote Famine … the most dreadful resource of nature.
colorization © todayinsci (Terms of Use) (source)

Please respect the colorization artist’s wishes and do not copy this image for ONLINE use anywhere else.

Thank you.

For offline use, click Terms of Use tab on top menu.

Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow, levels the population with the food of the world.
In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 140, and in new enlarged edition (1803), 350.
Science quotes on:  |  Ability (162)  |  Active (80)  |  Advance (298)  |  Advancement (63)  |  Army (35)  |  Array (5)  |  Blow (45)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dreadful (16)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Fail (191)  |  Failure (176)  |  Famine (18)  |  Finish (62)  |  Food (213)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Great (1610)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Incomplete (31)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Minister (10)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plague (42)  |  Population (115)  |  Power (771)  |  Precursor (5)  |  Premature (22)  |  Production (190)  |  Race (278)  |  Resource (74)  |  Season (47)  |  Sickness (26)  |  Stalk (6)  |  Still (614)  |  Subsistence (9)  |  Success (327)  |  Superior (88)  |  Superiority (19)  |  Sweep (22)  |  Terrific (4)  |  Themself (4)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Vice (42)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)

In the arts of life main invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. … There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.
Play, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (1903)
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Death (406)  |  Famine (18)  |  Greed (17)  |  Heart (243)  |  Industry (159)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Plague (42)  |  Sloth (7)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

In the end, poverty, putridity and pestilence; work, wealth and worry; health, happiness and hell, all simmer down into village problems.
Science quotes on:  |  Down (455)  |  End (603)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Health (210)  |  Hell (32)  |  Money (178)  |  Poverty (40)  |  Problem (731)  |  Wealth (100)  |  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)  |  Nobility (5)  |  Noble (93)  |  Other (2233)  |  Paragon (4)  |  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)

Scourges, pestilence, famine, earthquakes, and wars are to be regarded as blessings, since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race.
In The Timeline Book of Science by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey (1995).
Science quotes on:  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Famine (18)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Race (278)  |  Regard (312)  |  War (233)

Statistics has been the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death.
Speech (16 Dec 1867) given while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, introducing resolution for the appointment of a committee to examine the necessities for legislation upon the subject of the ninth census to be taken the following year. Quoted in John Clark Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield (1881), 216.
Science quotes on:  |  Crime (39)  |  Dark (145)  |  Death (406)  |  Disease (340)  |  Famine (18)  |  Flood (52)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Light (635)  |  Question (649)  |  Statistics (170)

The Pestilence can never breed the Small-Pox, nor the Small-Pox the Measles, nor they the Crystals or Chicken-Pox, any more than an Hen can breed a Duck, a Wolf a Sheep, or a Thistle Figs; and consequently, one Sort cannot be a Preservative against any other Sort.
In Ludvig Hektoen, 'Thomas Fuller 1654-1734: country physician and pioneer exponent of specificness in infection and immunity', Bulletin of the Society of Medical History of Chicago (Mar 1922), 2, 321. In the reprint of the paper alone, the quote is on page 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Breed (26)  |  Consequently (5)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Duck (3)  |  Hen (9)  |  Measles (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Sheep (13)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Sort (50)  |  Thistle (5)  |  Wolf (11)

The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon and the effects of our medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain, except indeed that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Barbarous (4)  |  Combine (58)  |  Degree (277)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Effect (414)  |  Famine (18)  |  High (370)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jargon (13)  |  Live (650)  |  Medicine (392)  |  More (2558)  |  System (545)  |  Uncertain (45)  |  War (233)

The star [Tycho’s supernova] was at first like Venus and Jupiter, giving pleasing effects; but as it then became like Mars, there will next come a period of wars, seditions, captivity and death of princes, and destruction of cities, together with dryness and fiery meteors in the air, pestilence, and venomous snakes. Lastly, the star became like Saturn, and there will finally come a time of want, death, imprisonment and all sorts of sad things.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Tycho Brahe (24)  |  Death (406)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Dryness (5)  |  Effect (414)  |  First (1302)  |  Jupiter (28)  |  Mars (47)  |  Meteor (19)  |  Next (238)  |  Observation (593)  |  Period (200)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Saturn (15)  |  Snake (29)  |  Star (460)  |  Supernova (7)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Together (392)  |  Venus (21)  |  Want (504)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)

The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me - a small disk, 240,000 miles away… Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from that distance.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Disk (3)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Famine (18)  |  Fascinate (12)  |  Interest (416)  |  Mile (43)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nationalistic (2)  |  Rage (10)  |  Show (353)  |  Small (489)  |  View (496)  |  War (233)

We need go back only a few centuries to find the great mass of people depending on religion for the satisfaction of practically all their wishes. From rain out of the sky to good health on earth, they sought their desires at the altars of their gods. Whether they wanted large families, good crops, freedom from pestilence, or peace of mind, they conceived themselves as dependent on the favor of heaven. Then science came with its alternative, competitive method of getting what we want. That is science’s most important attribute. As an intellectual influence it is powerful enough, but as a practical way of achieving man’s desires it is overwhelming.
In 'The Real Point of Conflict between Science and Religion', collected in Living Under Tension: Sermons On Christianity Today (1941), 140-141.
Science quotes on:  |  Achieving (3)  |  Altar (11)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Back (395)  |  Century (319)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Crop (26)  |  Desire (212)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Family (101)  |  Favor (69)  |  Find (1014)  |  Freedom (145)  |  God (776)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Health (210)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Important (229)  |  Influence (231)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Large (398)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mass (160)  |  Method (531)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  Overwhelming (30)  |  Peace (116)  |  Peace Of Mind (4)  |  People (1031)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Practical (225)  |  Rain (70)  |  Religion (369)  |  Satisfaction (76)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Sky (174)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Wish (216)


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.