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: “A change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and takes place along the straight line in which that force is impressed.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index R > Category: Rhetoric

Rhetoric Quotes (13 quotes)

A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who … plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.
As recollected in a letter written by an undergraduate, John Richard Green, writing to his friend, afterwards Professor Boyd Dawkins. This was Huxley's rebuttal to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce who ridiculed Darwin's theory of evolution at a meeting of the British Association at Oxford (30 Jun 1860). After hearing Wilberforce's speech, and before rising himself, Huxley is said to have remarked, “The Lord has delivered him into my hands!” (No transcript was taken at the time, so the words are not verbatim. The version above is commonly seen, and was said by Huxley to be fair in substance, if not wholely accurate. The letter excerpt is in Leonard Huxley (ed.), Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (1916), Vol. 1, 199. Additional accounts of the debate are given in the book.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Aimless (5)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Ape (54)  |  Attention (196)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Feel (371)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Man (2252)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Plunge (11)  |  Point (584)  |  Prejudice (96)  |  Question (649)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Religious (134)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Skill (116)  |  Versatile (6)  |  Samuel Wilberforce (3)

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
'L. Of Studies,' Essays (1597). In Francis Bacon and Basil Montagu, The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England (1852), 55.
Science quotes on:  |  Deep (241)  |  Grave (52)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Moral (203)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Wise (143)

I am sorry the infernal Divinities, who visit mankind with diseases, and are therefore at perpetual war with Doctors, should have prevented my seeing all you great Men at Soho to-day-Lord! what inventions, what wit, what rhetoric, metaphysical, mechanical and pyrotecnical, will be on the wing, bandy'd like a shuttlecock from one to another of your troop of philosophers! while poor I, I by myself I, imprizon'd in a post chaise, am joggled, and jostled, and bump'd, and bruised along the King's high road, to make war upon a pox or a fever!
Letter to Matthew Boulton, 5 April 1778. Quoted in Desmond King-Hele (ed.), The Letters of Erasmus Darwin (1981), 84.
Science quotes on:  |  Disease (340)  |  Doctor (191)  |  Fever (34)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Metaphysical (38)  |  Myself (211)  |  Perpetual (59)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Poor (139)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Sorry (31)  |  War (233)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)  |  Wit (61)

I think it would be desirable that this form of word [mathematics] should be reserved for the applications of the science, and that we should use mathematic in the singular to denote the science itself, in the same way as we speak of logic, rhetoric, or (own sister to algebra) music.
In Presidential Address to the British Association, Exeter British Association Report (1869); Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, 669.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  Application (257)  |  Definitions and Objects of Mathematics (33)  |  Denote (6)  |  Desirable (33)  |  Form (976)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mathematic (3)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Music (133)  |  Reserve (26)  |  Same (166)  |  Singular (24)  |  Sister (8)  |  Speak (240)  |  Think (1122)  |  Use (771)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself … may have had anything but a public motive… The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives… He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.
In The Conquest of Happiness (1930, 2006), 79.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Customary (18)  |  Express (192)  |  Genuine (54)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Himself (461)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Motive (62)  |  Occur (151)  |  Party (19)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Platform (3)  |  Politics (122)  |  Power (771)  |  Press (21)  |  Public (100)  |  Retire (3)  |  Statesman (20)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Walk (138)  |  World (1850)

In the past, history has been devoted chiefly to the exploits of heroes and the story of wars; but history is now being speedily reorganized and rewritten upon a scientific basis, to exhibit the growth of culture in all its grand departments. History itself is now a science, and is no longer an art in which men exploit in rhetorical paragraphs.
From address (1 Oct 1884), at inauguration of the Corcoran School of Science and Arts, Columbian University, Washington, D.C. Published in 'The Larger Import of Scientific Education', Popular Science Monthly (Feb 1885), 26, 454.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Basis (180)  |  Culture (157)  |  Exhibit (21)  |  Growth (200)  |  Hero (45)  |  History (716)  |  Paragraph (5)  |  Rewrite (4)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Story (122)  |  War (233)

It is better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin grammar than rhetoric and moral philosophy, because they require exactitude of performance it is made certain that the lesson is mastered, and that power of performance is worth more than knowledge.
In Lecture on 'Education'. Collected in J.E. Cabot (ed.), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Child (333)  |  Exactitude (10)  |  Grammar (15)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Latin (44)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Master (182)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Performance (51)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Power (771)  |  Require (229)  |  Teach (299)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Worth (172)

Mathematics, among all school subjects, is especially adapted to further clearness, definite brevity and precision in expression, although it offers no exercise in flights of rhetoric. This is due in the first place to the logical rigour with which it develops thought, avoiding every departure from the shortest, most direct way, never allowing empty phrases to enter. Other subjects excel in the development of expression in other respects: translation from foreign languages into the mother tongue gives exercise in finding the proper word for the given foreign word and gives knowledge of laws of syntax, the study of poetry and prose furnish fit patterns for connected presentation and elegant form of expression, composition is to exercise the pupil in a like presentation of his own or borrowed thoughtsand their development, the natural sciences teach description of natural objects, apparatus and processes, as well as the statement of laws on the grounds of immediate sense-perception. But all these aids for exercise in the use of the mother tongue, each in its way valuable and indispensable, do not guarantee, in the same manner as mathematical training, the exclusion of words whose concepts, if not entirely wanting, are not sufficiently clear. They do not furnish in the same measure that which the mathematician demands particularly as regards precision of expression.
In Anleitung zum mathematischen Unterricht in höheren Schulen (1906), 17.
Science quotes on:  |  Adapt (70)  |  Aid (101)  |  Allow (51)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Borrow (31)  |  Brevity (8)  |  Clarity (49)  |  Clear (111)  |  Composition (86)  |  Concept (242)  |  Connect (126)  |  Definite (114)  |  Demand (131)  |  Departure (9)  |  Description (89)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Direct (228)  |  Do (1905)  |  Due (143)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Empty (82)  |  Enter (145)  |  Entirely (36)  |  Excel (4)  |  Exclusion (16)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Expression (181)  |  Find (1014)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  Flight (101)  |  Foreign (45)  |  Form (976)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Give (208)  |  Ground (222)  |  Guarantee (30)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Indispensable (31)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Language (308)  |  Law (913)  |  Logical (57)  |  Manner (62)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Measure (241)  |  Most (1728)  |  Mother (116)  |  Mother Tongue (3)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Never (1089)  |  Object (438)  |  Offer (142)  |  Other (2233)  |  Particularly (21)  |  Pattern (116)  |  Perception (97)  |  Phrase (61)  |  Place (192)  |  Poetry (150)  |  Precision (72)  |  Presentation (24)  |  Process (439)  |  Proper (150)  |  Prose (11)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Regard (312)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rigour (21)  |  Same (166)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Short (200)  |  Shortest (16)  |  Statement (148)  |  Study (701)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sufficiently (9)  |  Syntax (2)  |  Teach (299)  |  Thought (995)  |  Tongue (44)  |  Training (92)  |  Translation (21)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)  |  Value Of Mathematics (60)  |  Want (504)  |  Way (1214)  |  Word (650)

Mathematics, like dialectics, is an organ of the inner higher sense; in its execution it is an art like eloquence. Both alike care nothing for the content, to both nothing is of value but the form. It is immaterial to mathematics whether it computes pennies or guineas, to rhetoric whether it defends truth or error.
From Wilhelm Meislers Wanderjahre (1829), Zweites Buch. Collected in Goethe’s Werke (1830), Vol. 22, 252. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 36-37. The same book has another translation on p.202: “Mathematics, like dialectics, is an organ of the higher sense, in its execution it is an art like eloquence. To both nothing but the form is of value; neither cares anything for content. Whether mathematics considers pennies or guineas, whether rhetoric defends truth or error, is perfectly immaterial to either.” From the original German, “Die Mathematik ist, wie die Dialektik, ein Organ des inneren höheren Sinnes, in der Ausübung ist sie eine Kunst wie die Beredsamkeit. Für beide hat nichts Wert als die Form; der Gehalt ist ihnen gleichgültig. Ob die Mathematik Pfennige oder oder Guineen berechne, die Rhetorik Wahres oder Falsches verteidige, ist beiden vollkommen gleich.”
Science quotes on:  |  Alike (60)  |  Art (680)  |  Both (496)  |  Care (203)  |  Compute (19)  |  Content (75)  |  Defend (32)  |  Dialectic (6)  |  Eloquence (7)  |  Error (339)  |  Execution (25)  |  Form (976)  |  Guinea (2)  |  High (370)  |  Immaterial (6)  |  Inner (72)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Organ (118)  |  Penny (6)  |  Sense (785)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Value (393)

Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.
City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987).
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Science And Technology (46)  |  Shift (45)  |  Technology (281)

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; other to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. [The studies pass into the manners.]
'Of Studies' (1625) in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 6, 498.
Science quotes on:  |  Abeunt Studia In Mores (2)  |  Argument (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Book (413)  |  Common (447)  |  Conference (18)  |  Cunning (17)  |  Deep (241)  |  Diligence (22)  |  Extract (40)  |  Grave (52)  |  Great (1610)  |  Know (1538)  |  Little (717)  |  Logic (311)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Memory (144)  |  Moral (203)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Present (630)  |  Read (308)  |  Reading (136)  |  Swallow (32)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Water (503)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Wise (143)  |  Wit (61)  |  Write (250)  |  Writing (192)

The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the ‘liberal’ rhetoric of ‘equal time.’ But mistake it not.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Case (102)  |  Enemy (86)  |  Equal (88)  |  Fundamentalism (4)  |  Intolerance (8)  |  Liberal (8)  |  Masquerade (4)  |  Mistake (180)  |  Perverse (5)  |  Time (1911)

We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature. And generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous; while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art. So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct because it is not repugnant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct. So we see also that the science of medicine, if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical practice. With this reservation therefore we proceed to Human Philosophy or Humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate, or distributively; the other congregate, or in society. So as Human Philosophy is either Simple and Particular, or Conjugate and Civil. Humanity Particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that is, of knowledges that respect the Body, and of knowledges that respect the Mind. But before we distribute so far, it is good to constitute. For I do take the consideration in general and at large of Human Nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself; not so much in regard of those delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which, being mixed, cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.
The Advancement of Learning (1605) in James Spedding, Robert Ellis and Douglas Heath (eds.), The Works of Francis Bacon (1887-1901), Vol. 3, 366-7.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Art (680)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Barren (33)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Better (493)  |  Body (557)  |  Chiefly (47)  |  Civil (26)  |  Common (447)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constitute (99)  |  Continent (79)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Delightful (18)  |  Dignity (44)  |  Distribute (16)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Elegant (37)  |  Empirical (58)  |  Empty (82)  |  End (603)  |  Erroneous (31)  |  First (1302)  |  Fit (139)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Intention (46)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Large (398)  |  Life (1870)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Man (2252)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Portion (86)  |  Practice (212)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Regard (312)  |  Repugnant (8)  |  Respect (212)  |  Rotation (13)  |  Rule (307)  |  School (227)  |  See (1094)  |  Separation (60)  |  Simple (426)  |  Society (350)  |  State (505)  |  Term (357)  |  Touching (16)  |  Two (936)  |  Vein (27)


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.