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: Steam

Steam Quotes (81 quotes)

[At the end of the story, its main character, Tom] is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things that no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
The Water-babies (1886), 368-9.
Science quotes on:  |  Character (259)  |  Coming (114)  |  Crocodile (14)  |  Egg (71)  |  Electric (76)  |  End (603)  |  Engine (99)  |  Everything (489)  |  Great (1610)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Little (717)  |  Man (2252)  |  Other (2233)  |  Plan (122)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Story (122)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)

[I predict] the electricity generated by water power is the only thing that is going to keep future generations from freezing. Now we use coal whenever we produce electric power by steam engine, but there will be a time when there’ll be no more coal to use. That time is not in the very distant future. … Oil is too insignificant in its available supply to come into much consideration.
As quoted in 'Electricity Will Keep The World From Freezing Up', New York Times (12 Nov 1911), SM4.
Science quotes on:  |  Available (80)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Distant (33)  |  Electric (76)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Future (467)  |  Generation (256)  |  Generator (2)  |  Hydroelectricity (2)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  More (2558)  |  Oil (67)  |  Power (771)  |  Predict (86)  |  Prediction (89)  |  Produce (117)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Supply (100)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Use (771)  |  Water (503)  |  Water Power (6)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

[Saint-Gaudens and Matthew Arnold] felt a railway train as power; yet they, and all other artists, constantly complained that the power embodied in a railway train could never be embodied in art. All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.
After viewing the Palace of Electricity at the 1900 Trocadero Exposition in Paris. In The Education of Henry Brooks Adams: An Autobiography (1918), 388.
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Artist (97)  |  Build (211)  |  Energy (373)  |  Never (1089)  |  Other (2233)  |  Power (771)  |  Railway (19)  |  Saint (17)  |  Train (118)  |  Virgin (11)  |  World (1850)

[W]e pity our fathers for dying before steam and galvanism, sulphuric ether and ocean telegraphs, photograph and spectrograph arrived, as cheated out of their human estate.
'Works and Days', Emerson's Complete Works (1883), 152.
Science quotes on:  |  Cheat (13)  |  Ether (37)  |  Father (113)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Photography (9)  |  Spectroscopy (11)  |  Spectrum (35)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Telegraph (45)

Strictly Germ-proof

The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;—
It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized.

They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.

In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band.

There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup—
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.
Printed in various magazines and medical journals, for example, The Christian Register (11 Oct 1906), 1148, citing Women's Home Companion. (Making fun of the contemporary national passion for sanitation.)
Science quotes on:  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  Baby (29)  |  Banish (11)  |  Boil (24)  |  Cold (115)  |  Creature (242)  |  Degree (277)  |  Disease (340)  |  Ear (69)  |  Freezing (16)  |  Fumigation (2)  |  Gambol (2)  |  Garden (64)  |  Germ (54)  |  Hard (246)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Hygiene (13)  |  Imbibed (3)  |  Loathe (4)  |  Look (584)  |  Microbe (30)  |  Play (116)  |  Playing (42)  |  Proof (304)  |  Pure (299)  |  Rubber (11)  |  Soap (11)  |  Sterile (24)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vapor (12)  |  Wash (23)

A carriage (steam) will set out from Washington in the morning, the passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia, and sup in New York the same day.
(about 1804). As quoted in Henry Howe, 'Oliver Evans', Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: (1840), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Breakfast (10)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Dine (5)  |  Eat (108)  |  Morning (98)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Philadelphia (3)  |  Set (400)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Washington (7)  |  Will (2350)

A stone arrowhead is as convincing as a steam-engine.
As proof that there has been a continuing advance of technology since prehistoric times. In 'A Law of Acceleration' (1904), The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography (1918), 493.
Science quotes on:  |  Arrowhead (4)  |  Convince (43)  |  Engine (99)  |  Invention (400)  |  Stone (168)

Already the steam-engine works our mines, impels our ships, excavates our ports and our rivers, forges iron, fashions wood, grinds grain, spins and weaves our cloths, transports the heaviest burdens, etc. It appears that it must some day serve as a universal motor, and be substituted for animal power, waterfalls, and air currents.
'Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu' (1824) translated by R.H. Thurston in Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power (1890), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Already (226)  |  Animal (651)  |  Burden (30)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Current (122)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Excavation (8)  |  Fashioning (2)  |  Forge (10)  |  Grain (50)  |  Grind (11)  |  Impelling (2)  |  Iron (99)  |  Mine (78)  |  Motor (23)  |  Must (1525)  |  Port (2)  |  Power (771)  |  River (140)  |  Serving (15)  |  Ship (69)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Transport (31)  |  Universal (198)  |  Waterfall (5)  |  Weave (21)  |  Weaving (6)  |  Wood (97)  |  Work (1402)

And as for other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,—sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out into the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! This contributed to the passing of the Pure Food Act of 1906.
The Jungle (1906), 117.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Bone (101)  |  Enough (341)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fish (130)  |  Floor (21)  |  Food (213)  |  Law (913)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Never (1089)  |  Open (277)  |  Other (2233)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Passing (76)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Pure (299)  |  Tank (7)  |  Trouble (117)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

Blessings on Science, and her handmaid Steam!
They make Utopia only half a dream.
From poem, 'Railways' (1846), collected in The Poetical Works of Charles Mackay: Now for the First Time Collected Complete in One Volume (1876), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Blessing (26)  |  Blessings (17)  |  Dream (222)  |  Half (63)  |  Handmaid (6)  |  Utopia (5)

But we shall not satisfy ourselves simply with improving steam and explosive engines or inventing new batteries; we have something much better to work for, a greater task to fulfill. We have to evolve means for obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever.
Speech (12 Jan 1897) at a gala inaugurating power service from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, NY. Printed in 'Tesla on Electricity', The Electrical Review (27 Jan 1897), 30, No. 3, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Battery (12)  |  Better (493)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Explosive (24)  |  Forever (111)  |  Fulfill (19)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Improve (64)  |  Invent (57)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  New (1273)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Satisfy (29)  |  Simply (53)  |  Something (718)  |  Store (49)  |  Task (152)  |  Work (1402)

Even the development of the steam engine owed but little to the advancement of science.
Science and Common Sense (1951), 299-300.
Science quotes on:  |  Advancement (63)  |  Development (441)  |  Engine (99)  |  Little (717)  |  Steam Engine (47)

Genius is the whistle of the locomotive, which with steaming shrieks indicates its progress, but common sense is the driving-wheel which moves the train.
In Igerne and Other Writings of Arthur Handly Marks (1897), 348.
Science quotes on:  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Drive (61)  |  Driving (28)  |  Genius (301)  |  Indicate (62)  |  Locomotive (8)  |  Move (223)  |  Progress (492)  |  Sense (785)  |  Shriek (4)  |  Train (118)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Whistle (3)

Guido was as much enchanted by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the boiler; more enchanted, perhaps for the engine would have got broken, and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful; the new toy was inexhaustible in its potentialities.
In Young Archimedes: And Other Stories (1924), 299. The fictional character, Guido, is a seven year old boy. Methylated spirit is an alcohol fuel.
Science quotes on:  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Blossom (22)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Break (109)  |  Broken (56)  |  Charm (54)  |  Continue (179)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Enchanted (2)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exquisite (27)  |  Give (208)  |  Grow (247)  |  Heat (180)  |  Inexhaustible (26)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Lose (165)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Potential (75)  |  Remain (355)  |  Remaining (45)  |  Rudiment (6)  |  Something (718)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Toy (22)  |  Unfailing (6)  |  Work (1402)

Here we come to a new and peculiar street railway … There is no steam on board. You ask how is this train propelled? Between the track and under ground is a cable running upon rollers for the length of the road…
In Travels with Jottings: From Midland to the Pacific (1880), 33.
Science quotes on:  |  Ask (420)  |  Cable (11)  |  Ground (222)  |  Andrew Smith Hallidie (2)  |  Length (24)  |  New (1273)  |  Peculiar (115)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Railway (19)  |  Road (71)  |  Roller (3)  |  Running (61)  |  San Francisco (3)  |  Street (25)  |  Track (42)  |  Train (118)  |  Transport (31)

I do verily believe that the time will come when carriages propelled by steam will be in general use, as well for the transportation of passengers as goods, traveling at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, or 300 miles per day.
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Carriage (11)  |  Do (1905)  |  General (521)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Hour (192)  |  Passenger (10)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Speed (66)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transportation (19)  |  Traveling (2)  |  Use (771)  |  Will (2350)

I had gone on a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street—had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection water if I used a jet, as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an outlet could be got at the depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. ... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.
[In Robert Hart's words, a recollection of the description of Watt's moment of inspiration, in May 1765, for improving Thomas Newcomen's steam engine.]
In Robert Hart, 'Reminiscences of James Watt' (read 2 Nov 1857), Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society (1859), Vol. 1, 1. Note that these are not the verbatim words of James Watt, but are only a recollection of them by Robert Hart, who is quoting as best he can from memory of a conversation he and his brother had with James Watt that took place over 43 years previously. In his Reminiscences, Hart explains, “I have accordingly thrown together the following brief narrative:— As these meetings took place forty-three years since, many observations that were made at the time may have escaped me at present; yet, when the same subjects are touched on, I have as distinct recollection of his treatment of them as if it were yesterday.”
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Body (557)  |  Both (496)  |  Communication (101)  |  Condensation (12)  |  Cooling (10)  |  Cylinder (11)  |  Depth (97)  |  Doing (277)  |  Elastic (2)  |  Engine (99)  |  Enough (341)  |  Enter (145)  |  Exhaustion (18)  |  Extract (40)  |  First (1302)  |  Gate (33)  |  Green (65)  |  House (143)  |  Idea (881)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Injection (9)  |  Inspiration (80)  |  Invention (400)  |  Large (398)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Moment (260)  |  Must (1525)  |  Thomas Newcomen (2)  |  Old (499)  |  Pass (241)  |  Run (158)  |  Saw (160)  |  Small (489)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Time (1911)  |  Two (936)  |  Vacuum (41)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Walk (138)  |  Water (503)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Word (650)

I know of the boons that machinery has conferred on men, all tyrants have boons to confer, but service to the dynasty of steam and steel is a hard service and gives little leisure to fancy to flit from field to field.
In 'Romance of Modern Stage', National Review (1911). Quoted in Edward Hale Bierstadt, Dunsany the Dramatist (1917), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Boon (7)  |  Confer (11)  |  Dynasty (8)  |  Fancy (50)  |  Field (378)  |  Hard (246)  |  Know (1538)  |  Leisure (25)  |  Little (717)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Service (110)  |  Steel (23)  |  Tyrant (10)

I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have—POWER.
About the improved steam engine invented by James Watt and brought into production at Boulton’s manufactory.
Entry for Friday 22 March 1776. In George Birkbeck-Hill (ed.), Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1934-50), Vol. 2, 459.
Science quotes on:  |  Desire (212)  |  Engine (99)  |  Power (771)  |  Production (190)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  James Watt (11)  |  World (1850)

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Calculation (134)  |  Execute (7)  |  God (776)  |  Wish (216)

If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time.
Lo! (1931, 1941), 20.
Science quotes on:  |  Blossom (22)  |  Engine (99)  |  Find (1014)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invention (400)  |  Logic (311)  |  Other (2233)  |  Progress (492)  |  Social (261)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tree (269)  |  Use (771)

In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even the Principia, as Newton with characteristic modesty entitled his great work, is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy, and no more an ultimate work, than Watt’s steam-engine, or Arkwright's spinning-machine.
Co-author with his brother Augustus William Hare Guesses At Truth, By Two Brothers: Second Edition: With Large Additions (1848), Second Series, 46. (The volume is introduced as “more than three fourths new.” This quote is identified as by Julius; Augustus had died in 1833.)
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Richard Arkwright (3)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Characteristic (154)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Machine (271)  |  Modesty (18)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Philosophy (52)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Principia (14)  |  Something (718)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Spinning Machine (2)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Stepping Stone (2)  |  Stone (168)  |  Temporary (24)  |  Title (20)  |  Truly (118)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Work (1402)  |  Worth (172)

In the beginning of the year 1800 the illustrious professor [Volta] conceived the idea of forming a long column by piling up, in succession, a disc of copper, a disc of zinc, and a disc of wet cloth, with scrupulous attention to not changing this order. What could be expected beforehand from such a combination? Well, I do not hesitate to say, this apparently inert mass, this bizarre assembly, this pile of so many couples of unequal metals separated by a little liquid is, in the singularity of effect, the most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.
In François Arago, 'Bloge for Volta' (1831), Oeuvres Completes de François Arago (1854), Vol. 1, 219-20.
Science quotes on:  |  Assembly (13)  |  Attention (196)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Bizarre (6)  |  Changing (7)  |  Cloth (6)  |  Column (15)  |  Combination (150)  |  Conceived (3)  |  Copper (25)  |  Couple (9)  |  Do (1905)  |  Effect (414)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expect (203)  |  Expected (5)  |  Forming (42)  |  Hesitate (24)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illustrious (10)  |  Inert (14)  |  Instrument (158)  |  Invention (400)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Marvel (37)  |  Marvellous (25)  |  Mass (160)  |  Metal (88)  |  Most (1728)  |  Order (638)  |  Pile (12)  |  Professor (133)  |  Say (989)  |  Scrupulous (7)  |  Separate (151)  |  Singularity (4)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Succession (80)  |  Telescope (106)  |  Unequal (12)  |  Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (5)  |  Wet (6)  |  Year (963)  |  Zinc (3)

In the heat of the sun, the ocean is the boiler and condenser of a gigantic steam engine, a weather engine that governs crops, floods, droughts, frosts, hurricanes.
In 'Ocean Policy and Reasonable Utopias', The Forum (Summer 1981), 16, No. 5, 900.
Science quotes on:  |  Boiler (7)  |  Condenser (4)  |  Crop (26)  |  Drought (14)  |  Engine (99)  |  Flood (52)  |  Frost (15)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Govern (66)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hurricane (4)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Sun (407)  |  Weather (49)

It is a remarkable illustration of the ranging power of the human intellect that a principle first detected in connection with the clumsy puffing of the early steam engines should be found to apply to the whole world, and possibly, even to the whole cosmic universe.
In Man and Energy (1955, 1963), 132.
Science quotes on:  |  Apply (170)  |  Clumsy (7)  |  Connection (171)  |  Cosmic (74)  |  Detect (45)  |  Early (196)  |  Engine (99)  |  First (1302)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Intellect (32)  |  Illustration (51)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Universe (900)  |  Whole (756)  |  Whole World (29)  |  World (1850)

It is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine. Electricity opens a field of infinite conveniences to ever greater numbers, but they may well have to pay dearly for them. But anyhow in my thought I stop short of the internal combustion engine which has made the world so much smaller. Still more must we fear the consequences of entrusting a human race so little different from their predecessors of the so-called barbarous ages such awful agencies as the atomic bomb. Give me the horse.
Address to the Royal College of Surgeons (10 Jul 1951). Collected in Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), 91.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Atomic Bomb (115)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Call (781)  |  Combustion (22)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Convenience (54)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fear (212)  |  Field (378)  |  Greater (288)  |  Horse (78)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Race (104)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Internal (69)  |  Internal Combustion Engine (4)  |  Invention (400)  |  Little (717)  |  March (48)  |  March Of Science (4)  |  More (2558)  |  Must (1525)  |  Number (710)  |  Open (277)  |  Predecessor (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Race (278)  |  Short (200)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Still (614)  |  Thought (995)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine–each was discovered by one man.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Certain (557)  |  Clear (111)  |  Countless (39)  |  Creative (144)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Discover (571)  |  Edible (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Generation (256)  |  Individual (420)  |  Man (2252)  |  Material (366)  |  Moral (203)  |  Plant (320)  |  Receive (117)  |  Society (350)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Trace (109)  |  Use (771)  |  Value (393)

It is sunlight in modified form which turns all the windmills and water wheels and the machinery which they drive. It is the energy derived from coal and petroleum (fossil sunlight) which propels our steam and gas engines, our locomotives and automobiles. ... Food is simply sunlight in cold storage.
In New Dietetics: What to Eat and How (1921), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Automobile (23)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cold (115)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Fossil (143)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gasoline (4)  |  Locomotive (8)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Petroleum (8)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Propel (2)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Solar Power (10)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Storage (6)  |  Sunlight (29)  |  Turn (454)  |  Water (503)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)

It is worthy of note that nearly all that has been done for the improvement of the steam engine has been accomplished, not by men educated in colleges or technical schools, but by laborers, mechanics, and engine-men. There seem to be instances where the mechanical instinct takes precedence over the higher powers of the mind, in efficiency in harnessing the forces of nature and causing them to do our work.
In paper 'Stephenson and Transportation' (1916), collected in Francis Edgar Stanley, Theories Worth Having and Other Papers (1919), 66-67.
Science quotes on:  |  College (71)  |  Do (1905)  |  Efficiency (46)  |  Engine (99)  |  Force (497)  |  Force Of Nature (9)  |  Harnessing (5)  |  Improvement (117)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Mechanic (120)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanics (137)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Power (771)  |  School (227)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Work (1402)

James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.
In The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth (2002), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Century (319)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Consummation (7)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eve (4)  |  First (1302)  |  Forever (111)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Life (1870)  |  New (1273)  |  Next (238)  |  Patent (34)  |  Prometheus (7)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Revolution (133)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Tentative (18)  |  Two (936)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Way (1214)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  World (1850)

Lay down your rails, ye nations, near and far—
Yoke your full trains to Steam’s triumphal car;
Link town to town; unite in iron bands
The long-estranged and oft-embattled lands.
From poem, 'Railways' (1846), collected in The Poetical Works of Charles Mackay: Now for the First Time Collected Complete in One Volume (1876), 214.
Science quotes on:  |  Car (75)  |  Down (455)  |  Iron (99)  |  Land (131)  |  Lay (3)  |  Link (48)  |  Long (778)  |  Nation (208)  |  Rail (5)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Town (30)  |  Train (118)  |  Triumph (76)  |  Unite (43)  |  Yoke (3)

Mankind has always drawn from outside sources of energy. This island was the first to harness coal and steam. But our present sources stand in the ratio of a million to one, compared with any previous sources. The release of atomic energy will change the whole structure of society.
Address to New Europe Group meeting on the third anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb. Quoted in New Europe Group, In Commemoration of Professor Frederick Soddy (1956), 7.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Energy (25)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Energy (373)  |  First (1302)  |  Harness (25)  |  Harnessing (5)  |  Island (49)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Outside (141)  |  Present (630)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Release (31)  |  Society (350)  |  Source (101)  |  Stand (284)  |  Structure (365)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

More than the diamond Koh-i-noor, which glitters among their crown jewels, they prize the dull pebble which is wiser than a man, whose poles turn themselves to the poles of the world, and whose axis is parallel to the axis of the world. Now, their toys are steam and galvanism.
English Traits (1856), 47. The “dull pebble” refers to lodestone and its magnetic properties.
Science quotes on:  |  Axis (9)  |  Compass (37)  |  Crown (39)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Dull (58)  |  Dullness (4)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  Glitter (10)  |  Jewel (10)  |  Lodestone (7)  |  Magnetic Field (7)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Parallel (46)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Pole (49)  |  Prize (13)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Toy (22)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turning (5)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  World (1850)

My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by, the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved.
Letter to Joel Barlow, Philadelphia, from New York (22 Aug 1807), in The Literary Magazine, and American Register for 1807 (1808), Vol. 8, No. 47, 96.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Back (395)  |  Both (496)  |  Coming (114)  |  Distance (171)  |  Down (455)  |  Engine (99)  |  Favorable (24)  |  Hour (192)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  New (1273)  |  Perform (123)  |  Power (771)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Steamboat (7)  |  Turn (454)  |  Two (936)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wholly (88)

Natural powers, principally those of steam and falling water, are subsidized and taken into human employment Spinning-machines, power-looms, and all the mechanical devices, acting, among other operatives, in the factories and work-shops, are but so many laborers. They are usually denominated labor-saving machines, but it would be more just to call them labor-doing machines. They are made to be active agents; to have motion, and to produce effect; and though without intelligence, they are guided by laws of science, which are exact and perfect, and they produce results, therefore, in general, more accurate than the human hand is capable of producing.
Speech in Senate (12 Mar 1838). In The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (1903), Vol. 8, 177.
Science quotes on:  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Accurate (88)  |  Active (80)  |  Agent (73)  |  Call (781)  |  Capability (44)  |  Capable (174)  |  Device (71)  |  Doing (277)  |  Effect (414)  |  Employment (34)  |  Exact (75)  |  Factory (20)  |  Falling (6)  |  General (521)  |  Hand (149)  |  Human (1512)  |  Intelligence (218)  |  Labor (200)  |  Labor-Saving (3)  |  Laborer (9)  |  Law (913)  |  Loom (20)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  More (2558)  |  Motion (320)  |  Natural (810)  |  Operative (10)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Power (771)  |  Power Loom (2)  |  Principal (69)  |  Production (190)  |  Result (700)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Spinning Machine (2)  |  Usually (176)  |  Water (503)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workshop (14)

Neither had Watt of the Steam engine a heroic origin, any kindred with the princes of this world. The princes of this world were shooting their partridges… While this man with blackened fingers, with grim brow, was searching out, in his workshop, the Fire-secret.
From Chartism, collected in James Wood (ed.) The Carlyle Reader (1894), 73.
Science quotes on:  |  Black (46)  |  Brow (3)  |  Engine (99)  |  Finger (48)  |  Fire (203)  |  Grim (6)  |  Hero (45)  |  Kindred (12)  |  Man (2252)  |  Origin (250)  |  Partridge (2)  |  Prince (13)  |  Searching (7)  |  Secret (216)  |  Shooting (6)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  James Watt (11)  |  Workshop (14)  |  World (1850)

No other part of science has contributed as much to the liberation of the human spirit as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Yet, at the same time, few other parts of science are held to be so recondite. Mention of the Second Law raises visions of lumbering steam engines, intricate mathematics, and infinitely incomprehensible entropy. Not many would pass C.P. Snow’s test of general literacy, in which not knowing the Second Law is equivalent to not having read a work of Shakespeare.
In The Second Law (1984), Preface, vii.
Science quotes on:  |  Contribution (93)  |  Engine (99)  |  Entropy (46)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  General (521)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Spirit (12)  |  Incomprehensible (31)  |  Intricate (29)  |  Knowing (137)  |  Law (913)  |  Liberation (12)  |  Literacy (10)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mention (84)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pass (241)  |  Read (308)  |  Recondite (8)  |  Second Law Of Thermodynamics (14)  |  William Shakespeare (109)  |  Snow (39)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Test (221)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Time (1911)  |  Vision (127)  |  Work (1402)

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)  |  Niagara (8)  |  Power (771)  |  Tunnel (13)  |  Turn (454)  |  Turned (2)

Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton’s time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.
From 'Lessons from the History of Science: The Scientific Attitude' (c.1896), in Collected Papers (1931), Vol. 1, 47.
Science quotes on:  |  Beach (23)  |  Carload (2)  |  Carry (130)  |  Children (201)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Lie (370)  |  Little (717)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Pebble (27)  |  Picking (2)  |  Pretty (21)  |  Remain (355)  |  French Saying (67)  |  Time (1911)  |  True (239)  |  Unexplored (15)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)

Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day and cost us nothing.
From Chap. 2, 'Civilization', in Society and Solitude (1870), 24.
Science quotes on:  |  Borrow (31)  |  Cost (94)  |  Element (322)  |  Fire (203)  |  Force (497)  |  Galvanism (9)  |  God (776)  |  Gravity (140)  |  Hitch (3)  |  Labor (200)  |  Light (635)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Serve (64)  |  Star (460)  |  Strong (182)  |  Wagon (10)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wisdom (235)

Nymphs! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand,
And give new wonders to the Chemist’s hand;
On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire,
Or fix in sulphur all its solid fire;
With boundless spring elastic airs unfold,
Or fill the fine vacuities of gold
With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal,
By fierce collision from the flint and steel. …
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Boundless (28)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Collision (16)  |  Expand (56)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flash (49)  |  Flint (7)  |  Gold (101)  |  New (1273)  |  Reveal (152)  |  Rising (44)  |  Solid (119)  |  Spark (32)  |  Spring (140)  |  Steel (23)  |  Sudden (70)  |  Sulphur (19)  |  Unite (43)  |  Wonder (251)

Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power—that is, power to move things. Take any given space of the earth’s surface— for instance, Illinois; and all the power exerted by all the men, and beasts, and running-water, and steam, over and upon it, shall not equal the one hundredth part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same space. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become proportionably valuable as a motive power. It is applied extensively, and advantageously, to sail-vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills, and pumps, and you have about all. … As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it.
Lecture 'Discoveries and Inventions', (1860) in Discoveries and Inventions (1915).
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Applied (176)  |  Beast (58)  |  Become (821)  |  Blowing (22)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Exert (40)  |  Force (497)  |  Greatest (330)  |  History (716)  |  Invention (400)  |  Largest (39)  |  Motive (62)  |  Move (223)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Possibly (111)  |  Power (771)  |  Renewable Energy (15)  |  Running (61)  |  Sail (37)  |  Ship (69)  |  Space (523)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Surface (223)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Think (1122)  |  Vessel (63)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)  |  Windmill (4)  |  World (1850)

Old King Coal was a merry old soul:
“I’ll move the world,” quoth he;
“My England’s high, and rich, and great,
But greater she shall be !”
And he call’d for the pick, and he call’d for the spade,
And he call’d for his miners bold;
“ And it’s dig,” he said, “in the deep, deep earth;
You’ll find my treasures better worth
Than mines of Indian gold!”

Old King Coal was a merry old soul,
Yet not content was he;
And he said, “I’ve found what I’ve desired,
Though ’tis but one of three.”
And he call’d for water, he call’d for fire,
For smiths and workmen true:
“Come, build me engines great and strong ;
We’ll have,” quoth he, “a change ere long;
We’ll try what Steam can do.”

Old King Coal was a merry old soul:
“’Tis fairly done,” quoth he,
When he saw the myriad wheels at work
O’er all the land and sea.
They spared the bones and strength of men,
They hammer’d, wove, and spun;
There was nought too great, too mean, or small,
The giant Steam had power for all;—
His task was never done.
From song, 'Old King Coal' (1846), collected in The Poetical Works of Charles Mackay: Now for the First Time Collected Complete in One Volume (1876), 565. To the melody of 'Old King Cole'.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Blacksmith (5)  |  Bold (22)  |  Bone (101)  |  Build (211)  |  Call (781)  |  Change (639)  |  Coal (64)  |  Deep (241)  |  Dig (25)  |  Do (1905)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Engine (99)  |  Find (1014)  |  Fire (203)  |  Giant (73)  |  Gold (101)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Hammer (26)  |  High (370)  |  Indian (32)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Long (778)  |  Loom (20)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Mine (78)  |  Miner (9)  |  Move (223)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Never (1089)  |  Old (499)  |  Pick (16)  |  Power (771)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Saw (160)  |  Sea (326)  |  Small (489)  |  Soul (235)  |  Spade (3)  |  Strength (139)  |  Strong (182)  |  Task (152)  |  Transport (31)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Try (296)  |  Water (503)  |  Wheel (51)  |  Work (1402)  |  Workman (13)  |  World (1850)  |  Worth (172)

Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to science.
Attributed (1917 ?). The quote means that whereas the steam engine was developed with little use of scientific theory, the machine spurred great advances in science including the ideas of entropy and thermodynamics that were not previously suggested by nature. The quote appears in various books without source citation, for example, in Charles Coulston Gillispie, The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas (1960), 357. If you know a primary source, please contact Webmaster.
Science quotes on:  |  Engine (99)  |  More (2558)  |  Owe (71)  |  Steam Engine (47)

Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.
Karl Marx
The Poverty of Philosophy (1910), 119.
Science quotes on:  |  Bound (120)  |  Capitalist (6)  |  Change (639)  |  Force (497)  |  Living (492)  |  Lord (97)  |  Mill (16)  |  New (1273)  |  Production (190)  |  Productive (37)  |  Social (261)  |  Society (350)  |  Steam Mill (2)  |  Way (1214)

Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams—day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing—are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.
Opening paragraph of preface, 'To My Readers', The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  America (143)  |  Apt (9)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Become (821)  |  Belief (615)  |  Betterment (4)  |  Brain (281)  |  Child (333)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Create (245)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Day Dream (2)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discover (571)  |  Dream (222)  |  Educator (7)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engine (99)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fairy Tale (7)  |  Foster (12)  |  Benjamin Franklin (95)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Invent (57)  |  Know (1538)  |  Lead (391)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Most (1728)  |  Open (277)  |  Please (68)  |  Present (630)  |  Prominent (6)  |  Reader (42)  |  Reality (274)  |  State (505)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Talking (76)  |  Telephone (31)  |  Tell (344)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Through (846)  |  Untold (6)  |  Value (393)  |  Whiz (2)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)  |  Woman (160)  |  Wonderful (155)  |  World (1850)  |  Young (253)  |  Youth (109)

Soon shall thy arm, UNCONQUER’D STEAM! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
From 'Botanic Garden' (1781), part 1, canto 1, lines 289-92. The Botanic Garden, with Philosophical Notes (4th Ed., 1799). At the time Erasmus Darwin penned his poem, he would have been aware of a limited history of steam power: Edward Someset, 2nd Marquis of Worcester steam pump (1663), Thomas Savery's steam pump (1698), Thomas Newcomen atmospheric engine (1712), Matthew Boulton and James Watt first commercial steam engine (1776). Watt did not build his first 'double acting' engine, which enabled using a flywheel, until 1783 (two years after Darwin's poem). It was also after Darwin's poem was written that the first steamboat, using paddles, the Pyroscaphe steamed up a French river on 15 Jul 1783. Darwin's predicted future for the steam engine car did not come to pass until Richard Trevithick tested his Camborne road engine (1801). The Wrights' first airplane flight came a century later, in 1903.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Arm (82)  |  Bear (162)  |  Car (75)  |  Chariot (9)  |  Expand (56)  |  Field (378)  |  Flying (74)  |  Poem (104)  |  Slow (108)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Through (846)  |  Wide (97)  |  Wing (79)

Statistics is a science which ought to be honourable, the basis of many most important sciences; but it is not to be carried on by steam, this science, any more than others are; a wise head is requisite for carrying it on.
Chartism (1839, 1840), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Basis (180)  |  Important (229)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Wisdom (235)  |  Wise (143)

Steam is no stronger now than it was a hundred years ago, but it is put to better use.
In chapter 3, 'Wealth', The Conduct of Life (1860), collected in Emerson’s Complete Works (1892), Vol. 6, 86.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Strength (139)  |  Stronger (36)  |  Use (771)  |  Year (963)

Steam, that great civilizer.
Lecture, Providence, Rhode Island (4 Sep 1849), The Merchant: An Oration Before the Rhode Island Alpha of Phi Beta Kappa (1849), 39. Reprinted in three parts in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review (May-Jul 1851), 24. The quote appears on page 689. A sketch of Russell’s life is on page 531. The quote is in a compilation by Charles Noel Douglas, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical (1917), 1535 (also online at Bartleby.com) where it is incorrectly attributed to Freeman Hunt. Russell is introduced as the author in the May 1851 issue of Hunt’s magazine, of which Freeman Hunt was the publisher.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Great (1610)

Take away these instinctive dispositions with their powerful impulses, and the organism would become incapable of activity of any kind; it would lie inert and motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose mainspring had been removed or a steam-engine whose fires had been withdrawn.
An Introduction to Social Psychology (1928), 38.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Become (821)  |  Disposition (44)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Impulse (52)  |  Incapable (41)  |  Inert (14)  |  Instinct (91)  |  Kind (564)  |  Lie (370)  |  Mainspring (2)  |  Organism (231)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Wonderful (155)

The animal frame, though destined to fulfill so many other ends, is as a machine more perfect than the best contrived steam-engine—that is, is capable of more work with the same expenditure of fuel.
'On Matter, Living Force, and Heat' (1847). In The Scientific Papers of James Prescott Joule (1884), Vol. 1, 271.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Best (467)  |  Capable (174)  |  Destined (42)  |  End (603)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Machine (271)  |  More (2558)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Work (1402)

The gentleman [Mr. Taber] from New York says [agricultural research] is all foolish. Yes; it was foolish when Burbank was experimenting with wild cactus. It was foolish when the Wright boys went down to Kitty Hawk and had a contraption there that they were going to fly like birds. It was foolish when Robert Fulton tried to put a boiler into a sail boat and steam it up the Hudson. It was foolish when one of my ancestors thought the world was round and discovered this country so that the gentleman from New York could become a Congressman. (Laughter.) ... Do not seek to stop progress; do not seek to put the hand of politics on these scientific men who are doing a great work. As the gentleman from Texas points out, it is not the discharge of these particular employees that is at stake, it is all the work of investigation, of research, of experimentation that has been going on for years that will be stopped and lost.
Speaking (28 Dec 1932) as a member of the 72nd Congress, early in the Great Depression, in opposition to an attempt to eliminate a small amount from the agricultural appropriation bill. As quoted in 'Mayor-Elect La Guardia on Research', Science (1933), New Series, 78, No. 2031, 511.
Science quotes on:  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Become (821)  |  Bird (163)  |  Boat (17)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Boy (100)  |  Cactus (3)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Contraption (3)  |  Country (269)  |  Discharge (21)  |  Discover (571)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Down (455)  |  Employee (3)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Foolish (41)  |  Foolishness (10)  |  Robert Fulton (8)  |  Gentleman (26)  |  Government (116)  |  Great (1610)  |  Hand (149)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Kitty Hawk (5)  |  Laughter (34)  |  Loss (117)  |  Men Of Science (147)  |  New (1273)  |  New York (17)  |  Point (584)  |  Politics (122)  |  Progress (492)  |  Research (753)  |  Researcher (36)  |  Sail (37)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Progress (14)  |  Seek (218)  |  Stop (89)  |  Technology (281)  |  Thought (995)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Orville Wright (10)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)  |  Year (963)

The mighty steam-engine has its germ in the simple boiler in which the peasant prepares his food. The huge ship is but the expansion of the floating leaf freighted with its cargo of atmospheric dust; and the flying balloon is but the infant's soap-bubble lightly laden and overgrown. But the Telescope, even in its most elementary form, embodies a novel and gigantic idea, without an analogue in nature, and without a prototype in experience
Stories of Inventors and Discoverers in Science and the Useful Arts (1860), 145.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogue (7)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Bubble (23)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Cook (20)  |  Dust (68)  |  Elementary (98)  |  Engine (99)  |  Expansion (43)  |  Experience (494)  |  Flying (74)  |  Food (213)  |  Form (976)  |  Germ (54)  |  Gigantic (40)  |  Idea (881)  |  Infant (26)  |  Leaf (73)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Novel (35)  |  Origin (250)  |  Peasant (9)  |  Prototype (9)  |  Ship (69)  |  Simple (426)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Telescope (106)

The more we resist the steam the greater is the effect of the engine. On these principles, very light, but powerful engines, can be made, suitable for propelling boats and land-carriages, without the great incumbrance of their own weight
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 212.
Science quotes on:  |  Boat (17)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Effect (414)  |  Encumbrance (5)  |  Engine (99)  |  Great (1610)  |  Greater (288)  |  Light (635)  |  More (2558)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Principle (530)  |  Propulsion (10)  |  Resist (15)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Suitable (10)  |  Weight (140)

The nineteenth century which prides itself upon the invention of steam and evolution, might have derived a more legitimate title to fame from the discovery of pure mathematics.
In International Monthly (1901), 4, 83.
Science quotes on:  |  19th Century (41)  |  Century (319)  |  Derive (70)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Fame (51)  |  Invention (400)  |  Legitimate (26)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern Mathematics (50)  |  More (2558)  |  Pride (84)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Title (20)

The Post Office Committee of the House has referred to a sub-committee all the bills authorizing the building or buying of telegraph lines for the purpose of establishing a postal telegraph—that is, of sending mails by electricity … All is done by contract … with the carriage of mails by steam power [railroads] … It does not appear why there should be any difference of principle because of the substitution of electricity for steam.
[Foreshadowing email.]
In 'Mails by Electricity', New York Times (26 Apr 1884), 4. A previous proposal for U.S. Government ownership of a test postal telegraph received an adverse Report of the House Post Office Committee, reported in 'Postal Telegraph', New York Times (25 Feb 1869).
Science quotes on:  |  Authorization (3)  |  Bill (14)  |  Building (158)  |  Difference (355)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Email (3)  |  Establishment (47)  |  House (143)  |  Mail (2)  |  Office (71)  |  Post (8)  |  Post Office (2)  |  Power (771)  |  Principle (530)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Railroad (36)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Substitution (16)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Why (491)

The power of my [steam] engine rises in a geometrical proportion, while the consumption of fuel has only an arithmetical ratio; in such proportion that every time I added one fourth more to the consumption of fuel, the powers of the engine were doubled.
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 211-212.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetical (11)  |  Consumption (16)  |  Double (18)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Geometrical (11)  |  More (2558)  |  Power (771)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Rise (169)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Time (1911)

The pre-Darwinian age had come to be regarded as a Dark Age in which men still believed that the book of Genesis was a standard scientific treatise, and that the only additions to it were Galileo’s demonstration of Leonardo da Vinci’s simple remark that the earth is a moon of the sun, Newton’s theory of gravitation, Sir Humphry Davy's invention of the safety-lamp, the discovery of electricity, the application of steam to industrial purposes, and the penny post.
Back to Methuselah: a Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), viii.
Science quotes on:  |  Addition (70)  |  Age (509)  |  Application (257)  |  Belief (615)  |  Book (413)  |  Dark (145)  |  Dark Ages (10)  |  Charles Darwin (322)  |  Leonardo da Vinci (87)  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Demonstration (120)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |   Genesis (26)  |  Gravitation (72)  |  Industry (159)  |  Invention (400)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Man (2252)  |  Moon (252)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Penny (6)  |  Post (8)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Regard (312)  |  Remark (28)  |  Safety (58)  |  Safety Lamp (3)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Simple (426)  |  Standard (64)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Still (614)  |  Sun (407)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Theory Of Gravitation (6)  |  Treatise (46)

The primary rocks, … I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth’s crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,—waves and currents,—and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification. I dare not speak of the scenery of the period. We may imagine, however, a dark atmosphere of steam and vapour, which for age after age conceals the face of the sun, and through which the light of moon or star never penetrates; oceans of thermal water heated in a thousand centres to the boiling point; low, half-molten islands, dim through the log, and scarce more fixed than the waves themselves, that heave and tremble under the impulsions of the igneous agencies; roaring geysers, that ever and anon throw up their intermittent jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam, from these tremulous lands; and, in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep chasms, and that bears aloft fragments of molten rock and clouds of ashes. But should we continue to linger amid a scene so featureless and wild, or venture adown some yawning opening into the abyss beneath, where all is fiery and yet dark,—a solitary hell, without suffering or sin,—we would do well to commit ourselves to the guidance of a living poet of the true faculty,—Thomas Aird and see with his eyes.
Lecture Sixth, collected in Popular Geology: A Series of Lectures Read Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's Portfolio (1859), 297-298.
Science quotes on:  |  Abyss (30)  |  Act (278)  |  Age (509)  |  Ash (21)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Bear (162)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Chasm (9)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Commit (43)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Continue (179)  |  Course (413)  |  Crack (15)  |  Crust (43)  |  Current (122)  |  Dare (55)  |  Dark (145)  |  Deep (241)  |  Deposition (4)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Era (51)  |  Existence (481)  |  Eye (440)  |  Face (214)  |  Fire (203)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Form (976)  |  Fragment (58)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Heat (180)  |  Hell (32)  |  Igneous (3)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Internal (69)  |  Island (49)  |  Light (635)  |  Linger (14)  |  Living (492)  |  Low (86)  |  Matter (821)  |  Metamorphosis (5)  |  Molten (3)  |  Moon (252)  |  More (2558)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Never (1089)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ourselves (247)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Period (200)  |  Permit (61)  |  Poet (97)  |  Point (584)  |  Primary (82)  |  Regard (312)  |  Retain (57)  |  Rock (176)  |  Scene (36)  |  Sea (326)  |  See (1094)  |  Sin (45)  |  Solitary (16)  |  Speak (240)  |  Star (460)  |  Stratification (2)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Sun (407)  |  Surface (223)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thermal (15)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Through (846)  |  Vapour (16)  |  Water (503)  |  Wave (112)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Wild (96)

The production of motion in the steam engine always occurs in circumstances which it is necessary to recognize, namely when the equilibrium of caloric is restored, or (to express this differently) when caloric passes from the body at one temperature to another body at a lower temperature.
'Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu et sur les Machines Propres a Développer cette Puissance' (1824). Trans. Robert Fox, Reflexions on the Motive Power of Fire (1986), 64.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Engine (99)  |  Equilibrium (34)  |  Express (192)  |  Heat (180)  |  Motion (320)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Occur (151)  |  Production (190)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Temperature (82)  |  Thermodynamics (40)

The steam-engine I call fire-demon and great; but it is nothing to the invention of fire.
From Chartism, collected in James Wood (ed.) The Carlyle Reader (1894), 74.
Science quotes on:  |  Call (781)  |  Demon (8)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fire (203)  |  Great (1610)  |  Invention (400)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Steam Engine (47)

The steam-engine in its manifold applications, the crime-decreasing gas-lamp, the lightning conductor, the electric telegraph, the law of storms and rules for the mariner's guidance in them, the power of rendering surgical operations painless, the measures for preserving public health, and for preventing or mitigating epidemics,—such are among the more important practical results of pure scientific research, with which mankind have been blessed and States enriched.
President's Address to the British Association, Leeds (1858). In Charles W. Vincent and James Mason (eds.), The Year-book of Facts in Science and Art (1859), title page.
Science quotes on:  |  Anesthetic (4)  |  Application (257)  |  Bless (25)  |  Blessed (20)  |  Conductor (17)  |  Crime (39)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Enrich (27)  |  Epidemic (8)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gas Lamp (2)  |  Guidance (30)  |  Health (210)  |  Lamp (37)  |  Law (913)  |  Lightning (49)  |  Manifold (23)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Measure (241)  |  More (2558)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Pain (144)  |  Power (771)  |  Practical (225)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Public Health (12)  |  Pure (299)  |  Research (753)  |  Result (700)  |  Rule (307)  |  Scientific (955)  |  State (505)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Telegraph (45)

The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam engines, from city to city, almost as fast as birds fly,—fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such velocity, changing the scene in such rapid succession, will be the most exhilarating exercise.
(about 1804). As quoted in Henry Howe, 'Oliver Evans', Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics: (1840), 80.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Bird (163)  |  Change (639)  |  City (87)  |  Engine (99)  |  Exercise (113)  |  Exhilarating (3)  |  Fast (49)  |  Fly (153)  |  Hour (192)  |  Most (1728)  |  Passing (76)  |  People (1031)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Scene (36)  |  Stage (152)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Succession (80)  |  Through (846)  |  Time (1911)  |  Travel (125)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Will (2350)

The train, panting up past lonely farms,
Fed by the fireman's restless arms…
Past cotton grass and moorland boulder,
Shoveling white steam over her shoulder.
Poem written as narration for documentary film "Night Mail" (1936), made for the British Post Office.
Science quotes on:  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Boulder (8)  |  Farm (28)  |  Grass (49)  |  Lonely (24)  |  Moorland (2)  |  Past (355)  |  Shoulder (33)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Train (118)  |  White (132)

There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.
Quoted in The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (1854), Vol.1, 4.
Science quotes on:  |  Certainly (185)  |  Creativity (84)  |  Deep (241)  |  Engine (99)  |  Fail (191)  |  Great (1610)  |  Himself (461)  |  History (716)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Mind (133)  |  Information (173)  |  Interest (416)  |  Invention (400)  |  Inventor (79)  |  Lively (17)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minute (129)  |  More (2558)  |  Never (1089)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Point (584)  |  Posterity (29)  |  Progress (492)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Through (846)  |  Will (2350)

There are three distinctions in the kinds of bodies, or three states, which have more especially claimed the attention of philosophical chemists; namely, those which are marked by the terms elastic fluids, liquids, and solids. A very familiar instance is exhibited to us in water, of a body, which, in certain circumstances, is capable of assuming all the three states. In steam we recognise a perfectly elastic fluid, in water, a perfect liquid, and in ice of a complete solid. These observations have tacitly led to the conclusion which seems universally adopted, that all bodies of sensible magnitude, whether liquid or solid, are constituted of a vast number of extremely small particles, or atoms of matter bound together by a force of attraction.
A New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), Vol. 1, 141.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Atomic Theory (16)  |  Attention (196)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Body (557)  |  Bound (120)  |  Capable (174)  |  Certain (557)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Claim (154)  |  Complete (209)  |  Conclusion (266)  |  Distinction (72)  |  Fluid (54)  |  Force (497)  |  Ice (58)  |  Kind (564)  |  Liquid (50)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Marked (55)  |  Matter (821)  |  Molecular Force (2)  |  More (2558)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Particle (200)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Small (489)  |  Solid (119)  |  State (505)  |  Term (357)  |  Terms (184)  |  Together (392)  |  Vast (188)  |  Water (503)

There are various causes for the generation of force: a tensed spring, an air current, a falling mass of water, fire burning under a boiler, a metal that dissolves in an acid—one and the same effect can be produced by means of all these various causes. But in the animal body we recognise only one cause as the ultimate cause of all generation of force, and that is the reciprocal interaction exerted on one another by the constituents of the food and the oxygen of the air. The only known and ultimate cause of the vital activity in the animal as well as in the plant is a chemical process.
'Der Lebensprocess im Thiere und die Atmosphare', Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie (1841), 41, 215-7. Trans. Kenneth L. Caneva, Robert Mo.yer and the Conservation of Energy (1993), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Acid (83)  |  Activity (218)  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Body (557)  |  Boiler (7)  |  Burning (49)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Current (122)  |  Dissolve (22)  |  Effect (414)  |  Exert (40)  |  Fire (203)  |  Food (213)  |  Force (497)  |  Generation (256)  |  Interaction (47)  |  Known (453)  |  Mass (160)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Metal (88)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Plant (320)  |  Process (439)  |  Produced (187)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Spring (140)  |  Tension (24)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Various (205)  |  Vital (89)  |  Water (503)  |  Wind (141)

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine and the electric telegraph.
In 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Civilization', in Man and Superman (1903), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Civilization (220)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Modern (402)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Usually (176)

Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better.
In 'Maxims for Revolutionists: Civilization', in Man and Superman (1903), 241.
Science quotes on:  |  Better (493)  |  Electric (76)  |  Engine (99)  |  Invention (400)  |  Live (650)  |  Something (718)  |  Spend (97)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Trying (144)  |  Understand (648)

Thou canst not make water flow uphill but by expenditure of greater force than draws it down. The spirit of fire can do this,—converting it to steam. Spiritualise water, and it ascends in spite of itself.
In Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), lxv.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascend (30)  |  Convert (22)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Draw (140)  |  Expenditure (16)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flow (89)  |  Force (497)  |  Greater (288)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Spite (55)  |  Uphill (3)  |  Water (503)

To find fault with our ancestors for not having annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot, would be like quarrelling with the Greeks and Romans for not using steam navigation, when we know it is so safe and expeditious; which would be, in short, simply finding fault with the third century before Christ for not being the eighteenth century after. It was necessary that many other things should be thought and done, before, according to the laws of human affairs, it was possible that steam navigation should be thought of. Human nature must proceed step by step, in politics as well as in physics.
The Spirit of the Age (1831). Ed. Frederick A. von Hayek (1942), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  18th Century (21)  |  According (236)  |  Ancestor (63)  |  Being (1276)  |  Century (319)  |  Christ (17)  |  Fault (58)  |  Find (1014)  |  Greek (109)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Nature (71)  |  Know (1538)  |  Law (913)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Other (2233)  |  Parliament (8)  |  Physic (515)  |  Physics (564)  |  Politics (122)  |  Possible (560)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Quarrel (10)  |  Roman (39)  |  Safe (61)  |  Safety (58)  |  Short (200)  |  Step (234)  |  Step By Step (11)  |  Suffrage (4)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Universal (198)  |  Vote (16)

To produce any given motion, to spin a certain weight of cotton, or weave any quantity of linen, there is required steam; to produce the steam, fuel; and thus the price of fuel regulates effectively the cost of mechanical power. Abundance and cheapness of fuel are hence main ingredients in industrial success. It is for this reason that in England the active manufacturing districts mark, almost with geological accuracy, the limits of the coal fields.
In The Industrial Resources of Ireland (1844), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Accuracy (81)  |  Active (80)  |  Certain (557)  |  Coal (64)  |  Cost (94)  |  Cotton (8)  |  District (11)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  England (43)  |  Field (378)  |  Fuel (39)  |  Geography (39)  |  Geology (240)  |  Industrial Revolution (10)  |  Limit (294)  |  Linen (8)  |  Manufacturing (29)  |  Mark (47)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Mechanical Power (2)  |  Motion (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Price (57)  |  Production (190)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Reason (766)  |  Regulation (25)  |  Required (108)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Spin (26)  |  Spinning (18)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Success (327)  |  Weave (21)  |  Weight (140)

Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy.
Edward Teller with Judith L. Shoolery, Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics (2001), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Application (257)  |  Being (1276)  |  Develop (278)  |  Discovery (837)  |  Electron (96)  |  Electronics (21)  |  Energy (373)  |  Engine (99)  |  Equivalence (7)  |  First (1302)  |  Fission (10)  |  Follow (389)  |  Heat (180)  |  Long (778)  |  Mechanical (145)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nuclear Energy (18)  |  Role (86)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Technology (281)  |  Today (321)  |  Unusual (37)

True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men. To employ these rare minds on such work is like running a steam engine by burning diamonds.
From 'Lessons from the History of Science: The Scientific Attitude' (c.1896), in Collected Papers (1931), Vol. 1, 32.
Science quotes on:  |  Aid (101)  |  Burn (99)  |  Burning (49)  |  Diamond (21)  |  Distinctively (2)  |  Employ (115)  |  Engine (99)  |  Genius (301)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Rare (94)  |  Running (61)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Study (701)  |  Thing (1914)  |  True (239)  |  True Science (25)  |  Useful (260)  |  Useless (38)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

War and the steam engine joined forces and forged what was to become one of the most delicate of concepts. Sadi Carnot … formed the opinion that one cause of France’s defeat had been her industrial inferiority. … Carnot saw steam power as a universal motor. … Carnot was a visionary and sharp analyst of what was needed to improve the steam engine. … Carnot’s work … laid the foundations of [thermodynamics].
In The Second Law (1984), 1-2.
Science quotes on:  |  Analyst (8)  |  Become (821)  |  Sadi Carnot (4)  |  Cause (561)  |  Concept (242)  |  Defeat (31)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Engine (99)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Foundation (177)  |  France (29)  |  Improve (64)  |  Industry (159)  |  Inferiority (7)  |  Most (1728)  |  Motor (23)  |  Need (320)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Power (771)  |  Saw (160)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Thermodynamics (40)  |  Universal (198)  |  Visionary (6)  |  War (233)  |  Work (1402)

We have also here an acting cause to account for that balance so often observed in nature,—a deficiency in one set of organs always being compensated by an increased development of some others—powerful wings accompanying weak feet, or great velocity making up for the absence of defensive weapons; for it has been shown that all varieties in which an unbalanced deficiency occurred could not long continue their existen The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow.
In 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type', Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology (1858), 3, 61-62.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Action (342)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Kingdom (21)  |  Balance (82)  |  Become (821)  |  Being (1276)  |  Cause (561)  |  Centrifugal (3)  |  Compensation (8)  |  Conspicuous (13)  |  Continue (179)  |  Correct (95)  |  Defense (26)  |  Deficiency (15)  |  Development (441)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Engine (99)  |  Evident (92)  |  Existence (481)  |  Extinction (80)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Foot (65)  |  Governor (13)  |  Great (1610)  |  Increased (3)  |  Irregularity (12)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Long (778)  |  Magnitude (88)  |  Making (300)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Observation (593)  |  Observed (149)  |  Organ (118)  |  Other (2233)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Principle (530)  |  Reach (286)  |  Set (400)  |  Soon (187)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Step (234)  |  Variety (138)  |  Velocity (51)  |  Weak (73)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)  |  Wing (79)

When ever we turn in these days of iron, steam and electricity we find that Mathematics has been the pioneer. Were its back bone removed, our material civilization would inevitably collapse. Modern thought and belief would have been altogether different, had Mathematics not made the various sciences exact.
The Teaching of Mathematics in the Elementary and the Secondary School (1907), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Back (395)  |  Backbone (12)  |  Belief (615)  |  Bone (101)  |  Civilization (220)  |  Collapse (19)  |  Difference (355)  |  Different (595)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Exactness (29)  |  Find (1014)  |  Inevitability (10)  |  Iron (99)  |  Material (366)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Modern (402)  |  Modern Thought (4)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Removal (12)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)  |  Various (205)

When you say A[tomic] P[ower] is ‘here to stay’ you remind me that Chesterton said that whenever he heard that, he knew that whatever it referred to would soon be replaced, and thought pitifully shabby and old-fashioned. So-called ‘atomic’ power is rather bigger than anything he was thinking of (I have heard it of trams, gas-light, steam-trains). But it surely is clear that there will have to be some ‘abnegation’ in its use, a deliberate refusal to do some of the things it is possible to do with it, or nothing will stay!
From Letter draft to Joanna de Bortadano (Apr 1956). In Humphrey Carpenter (ed.) assisted by Christopher Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1995, 2014), 246, Letter No. 186.
Science quotes on:  |  Atomic Power (9)  |  Call (781)  |  G. K. Chesterton (55)  |  Deliberate (19)  |  Do (1905)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gas Light (2)  |  Hear (144)  |  Light (635)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Old (499)  |  Old-Fashioned (9)  |  Possible (560)  |  Power (771)  |  Refusal (23)  |  Replace (32)  |  Say (989)  |  Shabby (2)  |  So-Called (71)  |  Soon (187)  |  Stay (26)  |  Surely (101)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Train (118)  |  Tram (3)  |  Use (771)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Will (2350)

Wherever the steam mill resounds with the hum of Industry, whether grinding flour on … the Schuylkill, or cutting logs in Oregon, there you find a monument to the memory of Oliver Evans.
Anonymous
As quoted by Coleman Sellers, Jr., in his Lecture (20 Nov 1885) delivered at the Franklin Institute. Printed in Coleman Sellers, Jr., 'Oliver Evans and his Inventions', Journal of the Franklin Institute (Jul 1886), 122, No. 1, 16.
Science quotes on:  |  Cut (116)  |  Oliver Evans (12)  |  Find (1014)  |  Flour (4)  |  Grind (11)  |  Hum (4)  |  Industry (159)  |  Log (7)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mill (16)  |  Monument (45)  |  Resound (2)  |  Steam Mill (2)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Wherever (51)

Why may not the present generation, who have already good turnpikes, make the experiment of using steam carriages upon them? They will assuredly effect the movement of heavy burthens; with a slow motion of two and a half miles an hour, and as their progress need not be interrupted, they may travel fifty or sixty miles in the 24 hours.
From 'On the Origin of Steam Boats and Steam Wagons', Thomas Cooper (ed.), The Emporium of Arts and Sciences (Feb 1814), 2, No. 2, 215.
Science quotes on:  |  Already (226)  |  Carriage (11)  |  Effect (414)  |  Experiment (736)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Hour (192)  |  Motion (320)  |  Movement (162)  |  Present (630)  |  Progress (492)  |  Slow (108)  |  Speed (66)  |  Steam Power (10)  |  Transport (31)  |  Travel (125)  |  Turnpike (2)  |  Two (936)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)


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.