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: “I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, ... finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell ... whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index S > Category: Splendour

Splendour Quotes (8 quotes)

Ask a follower of Bacon what [science] the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; “It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, to cross the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow.”
From essay (Jul 1837) on 'Francis Bacon' in Edinburgh Review. In Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lady Trevelyan (ed.) The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete (1871), Vol. 6, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  Against (332)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Car (75)  |  Cave (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depth (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Father (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knot (11)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Range (104)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers—a living prismatic gem that changes its colour with every change of position— … its exquisite form, its changeful splendour, its swift motions and intervals of aërial suspension, it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.
In Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1916),
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  Color (155)  |  Creature (242)  |  Dance (35)  |  Description (89)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Fairy (10)  |  Flower (112)  |  Form (976)  |  Gem (17)  |  Humming (5)  |  Hummingbird (4)  |  Interval (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Loveliness (6)  |  Mock (7)  |  Motion (320)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Position (83)  |  Prismatic (2)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Suspension (7)  |  Swift (16)

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendour of the Mighty One …
I am become Death,
The shatterer of worlds.
His thoughts in reaction to viewing the fireball of the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, N.M. (16 Jul 1945). Fragments from Sacred Hindu Epic, Bhagavad-Gita. Quoted in A. Berry (ed.), The Book of Scientific Anecdotes (1989), 175.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Burst (41)  |  Death (406)  |  Poem (104)  |  Radiance (7)  |  Shattering (2)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thousand (340)  |  World (1850)

It has been said by a distinguished philosopher that England is “usually the last to enter into the general movement of the European mind.” The author of the remark probably meant to assert that a man or a system may have become famous on the continent, while we are almost ignorant of the name of the man and the claims of his system. Perhaps, however, a wider range might be given to the assertion. An exploded theory or a disadvantageous practice, like a rebel or a patriot in distress, seeks refuge on our shores to spend its last days in comfort if not in splendour.
Opening from essay, 'Elementary Geometry', included in The Conflict of Studies and Other Essays (1873), 136.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Author (175)  |  Become (821)  |  Claim (154)  |  Comfort (64)  |  Continent (79)  |  Disadvantageous (2)  |  Distinguish (168)  |  Distinguished (84)  |  Distress (9)  |  England (43)  |  Enter (145)  |  European (5)  |  Exploded (11)  |  Famous (12)  |  General (521)  |  Ignorant (91)  |  Last (425)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Movement (162)  |  Name (359)  |  Patriot (5)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Practice (212)  |  Range (104)  |  Rebel (7)  |  Refuge (15)  |  Remark (28)  |  Seek (218)  |  Spend (97)  |  System (545)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Usually (176)

October 9, 1863
Always, however great the height of the balloon, when I have seen the horizon it has roughly appeared to be on the level of the car though of course the dip of the horizon is a very appreciable quantity or the same height as the eye. From this one might infer that, could the earth be seen without a cloud or anything to obscure it, and the boundary line of the plane approximately the same height as the eye, the general appearance would be that of a slight concavity; but I have never seen any part of the surface of the earth other than as a plane.
Towns and cities, when viewed from the balloon are like models in motion. I shall always remember the ascent of 9th October, 1863, when we passed over London about sunset. At the time when we were 7,000 feet high, and directly over London Bridge, the scene around was one that cannot probably be equalled in the world. We were still so low as not to have lost sight of the details of the spectacle which presented itself to our eyes; and with one glance the homes of 3,000,000 people could be seen, and so distinct was the view, that every large building was easily distinguishable. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts most clearly. All round, the suburbs were also very distinct, with their lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in a mass of shrubs; beyond, the country was like a garden, its fields, well marked, becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered farther and farther away.
Again looking down, there was the Thames, throughout its whole length, without the slightest mist, dotted over its winding course with innumerable ships and steamboats, like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, also the mouth of the Thames, and the coast around as far as Norfolk. The southern shore of the mouth of the Thames was not so clear, but the sea beyond was seen for many miles; when at a higher elevation, I looked for the coast of France, but was unable to see it. On looking round, the eye was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed yet more careful attention.
Smoke, thin and blue, was curling from it, and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all except one part, south of the Thames, where it was less blue and seemed more dense, till the cause became evident; it was mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limit of which was bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, everywhere free from cloud, except near the horizon, where a band of cumulus and stratus extended all round, forming a fitting boundary to such a glorious view.
As seen from the earth, the sunset this evening was described as fine, the air being clear and the shadows well defined; but, as we rose to view it and its effects, the golden hues increased in intensity; their richness decreased as the distance from the sun increased, both right and left; but still as far as 90º from the sun, rose-coloured clouds extended. The remainder of the circle was completed, for the most part, by pure white cumulus of well-rounded and symmetrical forms.
I have seen London by night. I have crossed it during the day at the height of four miles. I have often admired the splendour of sky scenery, but never have I seen anything which surpassed this spectacle. The roar of the town heard at this elevation was a deep, rich, continuous sound the voice of labour. At four miles above London, all was hushed; no sound reached our ears.
Travels in the Air (1871), 99-100.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Appearance (145)  |  Attention (196)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Becoming (96)  |  Being (1276)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Both (496)  |  Bound (120)  |  Boundary (55)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Building (158)  |  Canopy (8)  |  Car (75)  |  Cause (561)  |  Circle (117)  |  Claim (154)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Completed (30)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Country (269)  |  Course (413)  |  Curve (49)  |  Deep (241)  |  Detail (150)  |  Distance (171)  |  Distinct (98)  |  Down (455)  |  Ear (69)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Elevation (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Evident (92)  |  Extend (129)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Farther (51)  |  Field (378)  |  Flight (101)  |  Form (976)  |  Forming (42)  |  Free (239)  |  Garden (64)  |  General (521)  |  Glance (36)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Golden (47)  |  Great (1610)  |  Ground (222)  |  High (370)  |  Home (184)  |  Horizon (47)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Intensity (34)  |  Labor (200)  |  Large (398)  |  Limit (294)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Low (86)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mist (17)  |  Model (106)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motion (320)  |  Mouth (54)  |  Never (1089)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Pure (299)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reach (286)  |  Remainder (7)  |  Remember (189)  |  Right (473)  |  Rising (44)  |  Rose (36)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Shadow (73)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shrub (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Sky (174)  |  Smoke (32)  |  Sound (187)  |  South (39)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Still (614)  |  Suburb (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Sunset (27)  |  Surface (223)  |  Surface Of The Earth (36)  |  Surpass (33)  |  Thames (6)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Toy (22)  |  View (496)  |  Visible (87)  |  Wander (44)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Winding (8)  |  World (1850)

Those who knew that the judgements of many centuries had reinforced the opinion that the Earth is placed motionless in the middle of heaven, as though at its centre, if I on the contrary asserted that the Earth moves, I hesitated for a long time whether to bring my treatise, written to demonstrate its motion, into the light of day, or whether it would not be better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and certain others, who used to pass on the mysteries of their philosophy merely to their relatives and friends, not in writing but by personal contact, as the letter of Lysis to Hipparchus bears witness. And indeed they seem to me to have done so, not as some think from a certain jealousy of communicating their doctrines, but so that their greatest splendours, discovered by the devoted research of great men, should not be exposed to the contempt of those who either find it irksome to waste effort on anything learned, unless it is profitable, or if they are stirred by the exhortations and examples of others to a high-minded enthusiasm for philosophy, are nevertheless so dull-witted that among philosophers they are like drones among bees.
'To His Holiness Pope Paul III', in Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543), trans. A. M. Duncan (1976), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Assert (69)  |  Bear (162)  |  Bee (44)  |  Better (493)  |  Certain (557)  |  Contact (66)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Demonstrate (79)  |  Devoted (59)  |  Discover (571)  |  Drone (4)  |  Dull (58)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effort (243)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Exposed (33)  |  Find (1014)  |  Follow (389)  |  Friend (180)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Heaven (266)  |  High (370)  |  Hipparchus (5)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Jealousy (9)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Letter (117)  |  Light (635)  |  Long (778)  |  Lysis (4)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Motion (320)  |  Move (223)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Profitable (29)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Research (753)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Think (1122)  |  Time (1911)  |  Treatise (46)  |  Waste (109)  |  Witness (57)  |  Writing (192)

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
The Outermost House (1928), 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Attain (126)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complicated (117)  |  Concept (242)  |  Creature (242)  |  Distortion (13)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Extension (60)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fellow (88)  |  Finish (62)  |  Form (976)  |  Gift (105)  |  Gifted (25)  |  Glass (94)  |  Hear (144)  |  Image (97)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Move (223)  |  Nation (208)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Observation (593)  |  Other (2233)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Remote (86)  |  See (1094)  |  Sense (785)  |  Survey (36)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tragic (19)  |  Universal (198)  |  Whole (756)  |  World (1850)

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn, and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience; looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light, but, nevertheless, having to turn away his eyes when the sun appeared, unable to bear the splendour he had awaited with so much desire.
In The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe (1906), 197-198.
Science quotes on:  |  Advent (7)  |  Await (6)  |  Bear (162)  |  Dawn (31)  |  Desire (212)  |  East (18)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Eye (440)  |  Final (121)  |  Forward (104)  |  Gaze (23)  |  Growing (99)  |  Impatience (13)  |  Joy (117)  |  Light (635)  |  Longing (19)  |  Looking (191)  |  Luminous (19)  |  Modern (402)  |  Myself (211)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Science (133)  |  Nevertheless (90)  |  Observe (179)  |  Progress (492)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Sun (407)  |  Time (1911)  |  Traveler (33)  |  Turn (454)  |  Unable (25)


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.