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 believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index V > Category: Vitality

Vitality Quotes (24 quotes)

[Godfrey H. Hardy] personified the popular idea of the absent-minded professor. But those who formed the idea that he was merely an absent-minded professor would receive a shock in conversation, where he displayed amazing vitality on every subject under the sun. ... He was interested in the game of chess, but was frankly puzzled by something in its nature which seemed to come into conflict with his mathematical principles.
In 'Prof. G. H. Hardy: A Mathematician of Genius,' Obituary The Times.
Science quotes on:  |  Absent-Minded (4)  |  Amazing (35)  |  Chess (27)  |  Conflict (77)  |  Conversation (46)  |  Display (59)  |  Form (976)  |  Game (104)  |  G. H. Hardy (71)  |  Idea (881)  |  Interest (416)  |  Merely (315)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obituary (11)  |  Principle (530)  |  Professor (133)  |  Receive (117)  |  Shock (38)  |  Something (718)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)

A short, broad man of tremendous vitality, the physical type of Hereward, the last of the English, and his brother-in-arms, Winter, Sylvester’s capacious head was ever lost in the highest cloud-lands of pure mathematics. Often in the dead of night he would get his favorite pupil, that he might communicate the very last product of his creative thought. Everything he saw suggested to him something new in the higher algebra. This transmutation of everything into new mathematics was a revelation to those who knew him intimately. They began to do it themselves. His ease and fertility of invention proved a constant encouragement, while his contempt for provincial stupidities, such as the American hieroglyphics for π and e, which have even found their way into Webster’s Dictionary, made each young worker apply to himself the strictest tests.
In Florian Cajori, Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States (1890), 265.
Science quotes on:  |  Algebra (117)  |  American (56)  |  Apply (170)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Broad (28)  |  Brother (47)  |  Capacious (2)  |  Cloud (111)  |  Communicate (39)  |  Constant (148)  |  Contempt (20)  |  Creative (144)  |  Dead (65)  |  Do (1905)  |  Ease (40)  |  Encouragement (27)  |  English (35)  |  Everything (489)  |  Favorite (37)  |  Fertility (23)  |  Head (87)  |  Hieroglyphic (6)  |  High (370)  |  Himself (461)  |  Invention (400)  |  Last (425)  |  Lost (34)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mathematicians and Anecdotes (141)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  New (1273)  |  Night (133)  |  Often (109)  |  Physical (518)  |  Pi (14)  |  Product (166)  |  Provincial (2)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Pure (299)  |  Pure Mathematics (72)  |  Revelation (51)  |  Saw (160)  |  Short (200)  |  Something (718)  |  Strict (20)  |  Stupidity (40)  |  James Joseph Sylvester (58)  |  Test (221)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thought (995)  |  Transmutation (24)  |  Tremendous (29)  |  Type (171)  |  Way (1214)  |  Winter (46)  |  Worker (34)  |  Young (253)

As long as Algebra and Geometry have been separated, their progress has been slow and their usages limited; but when these two sciences were reunited, they lent each other mutual strength and walked together with a rapid step towards perfection.
From the original French, “Tant que l’Algèbre et la Géométrie ont été séparées, leur progrès ont été lents et leurs usages bornés; mais lorsque ces deux sciences se sont réunies, elles se sont prêté des forces mutuelles et ont marché ensemble d’un pas rapide vers la perfection,” in Leçons Élémentaires sur la Mathematiques, Leçon 5, as collected in J.A. Serret (ed.), Œuvres de Lagrange (1877), Tome 7, Leçon 15, 271. English translation above by Google translate, tweeked by Webmaster. Also seen translated as, “As long as algebra and geometry proceeded along separate paths, their advance was slow and their applications limited. But when these sciences joined company, they drew from each other fresh vitality and thenceforward marched on at a rapid pace toward perfection,” in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 81.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (298)  |  Algebra (117)  |  Application (257)  |  Company (63)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Geometry (271)  |  Join (32)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Long (778)  |  March (48)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pace (18)  |  Path (159)  |  Perfection (131)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Separate (151)  |  Slow (108)  |  Teaching of Mathematics (39)

Bearing in mind that it is from the vitality of the atmospheric particles that all the mischief arises, it appears that all that is requisite is to dress the wound with some material capable of killing these septic germs, provided that any substance can be found reliable for this purpose, yet not too potent as a caustic. In the course of the year 1864 I was much struck with an account of the remarkable effects produced by carbolic acid upon the sewage of the town of Carlisle, the admixture of a very small proportion not only preventing all odour from the lands irrigated with the refuse material, but, as it was stated, destroying the entozoa which usually infest cattle fed upon such pastures.
'On a New Method of Treating Compound Fracture, Abscesses, etc: With Observations on the Conditions of Supperation', Part 1, The Lancet (1867), 327.
Science quotes on:  |  Account (195)  |  Acid (83)  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  Arise (162)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cattle (18)  |  Caustic (2)  |  Course (413)  |  Cow (42)  |  Dressing (3)  |  Effect (414)  |  Germ (54)  |  Irrigation (12)  |  Material (366)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Particle (200)  |  Potent (15)  |  Produced (187)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Refuse (45)  |  Sewage (9)  |  Small (489)  |  Substance (253)  |  Treatment (135)  |  Usually (176)  |  Wound (26)  |  Year (963)

Birds’ songs express joy, beauty, and purity, and evoke in us vitality and love. So many beings in the universe love us unconditionally. The trees, the water, and the air don’t ask anything of us; they just love us. Even though we need this kind of love, we continue to destroy them. By destroying the animals, the air, and the trees, we are destroying ourselves. We must learn to practice unconditional love for all beings so that the animals, the air, the trees, and the minerals can continue to be themselves.
In Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (1993), 131-132.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Animal (651)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Bird (163)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Deforestation (50)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Evoke (13)  |  Joy (117)  |  Love (328)  |  Purity (15)  |  Song (41)  |  Tree (269)  |  Water (503)

But when it has been shown by the researches of Pasteur that the septic property of the atmosphere depended not on the oxygen, or any gaseous constituent, but on minute organisms suspended in it, which owed their energy to their vitality, it occurred to me that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided without excluding the air, by applying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles. Upon this principle I have based a practice.
'On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery', The British Medical Journal (1867), ii, 246.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Antiseptic (8)  |  Atmosphere (117)  |  Avoid (123)  |  Capable (174)  |  Constituent (47)  |  Decay (59)  |  Decomposition (19)  |  Depend (238)  |  Dressing (3)  |  Energy (373)  |  Infection (27)  |  Injury (36)  |  Life (1870)  |  Material (366)  |  Microorganism (29)  |  Minute (129)  |  Organism (231)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Particle (200)  |  Louis Pasteur (85)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Property (177)  |  Treatment (135)

Every subject in Davy’s mind has the principle of Vitality. Living thoughts spring up like Turf under his feet.
Quoted in Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (1847), 329.
Science quotes on:  |  Sir Humphry Davy (49)  |  Living (492)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Principle (530)  |  Spring (140)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thought (995)

I am inclined to think I shall owe ten years of my life to the good effects of the gas, for I inhale about 20 gallons every day in showing patients how to commence. The gas is just like air, only containing a little more oxygen. Oxygen is what gives life and vitality to the blood. We live on oxygen.
Quoted in The Electrical Review (11 Aug 1893), Vol. 33, 143.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Blood (144)  |  Effect (414)  |  Gas (89)  |  Good (906)  |  Inclined (41)  |  Life (1870)  |  Little (717)  |  Live (650)  |  More (2558)  |  Nitrous Oxide (5)  |  Owe (71)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Patient (209)  |  Think (1122)  |  Year (963)

I would not have it inferred ... that I am, as yet, an advocate for the hypothesis of chemical life. The doctrine of the vitality of the blood, stands in no need of aid from that speculative source. If it did, I would certainly abandon it. For, notwithstanding the fashionableness of the hypothesis in Europe, and the ascendancy it has gained over some minds in this country [USA], it will require stubborn facts to convince me that man with all his corporeal and intellectual attributes is nothing but hydro-phosphorated oxyde of azote ... When the chemist declares, that the same laws which direct the crystallization of spars, nitre and Glauber's salts, direct also the crystallization of man, he must pardon me if I neither understand him, nor believe him.
Medical Theses (1805), 391-2, footnote.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Advocate (20)  |  Aid (101)  |  Ascendancy (3)  |  Attribute (65)  |  Biochemistry (50)  |  Blood (144)  |  Certainly (185)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Chemist (169)  |  Convince (43)  |  Country (269)  |  Declare (48)  |  Direct (228)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Gain (146)  |  Hypothesis (314)  |  Intellectual (258)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pardon (7)  |  Require (229)  |  Salt (48)  |  Stand (284)  |  Stubborn (14)  |  Understand (648)  |  Will (2350)

In our day grand generalizations have been reached. The theory of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of still wider grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues of which are as yet but dimly seem-that doctrine which “binds nature fast in fate” to an extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from every antecedent its equivalent consequent, and bringing vital as well as physical phenomena under the dominion of that law of causal connexion which, so far as the human understanding has yet pierced, asserts itself everywhere in nature.
'Address Delivered Before The British Association Assembled at Belfast', (19 Aug 1874). Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews (1892), Vol. 2, 1801.
Science quotes on:  |  Antecedent (5)  |  Assert (69)  |  Assertion (35)  |  Binding (9)  |  Bringing (10)  |  Cause (561)  |  Connection (171)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Consequent (19)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Conservation Of Energy (30)  |  Doctrine (81)  |  Dominion (11)  |  Energy (373)  |  Equivalent (46)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Exacting (4)  |  Extent (142)  |  Fate (76)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grandness (2)  |  Grasp (65)  |  Human (1512)  |  Issue (46)  |  Law (913)  |  More (2558)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Origin (250)  |  Origin Of Species (42)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Physical (518)  |  Physics (564)  |  Radical (28)  |  Reach (286)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Significance (114)  |  Species (435)  |  Still (614)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vital (89)

In the case of the Sun, we have a new understanding of the cosmological meaning of sacrifice. The Sun is, with each second, transforming four million tons of itself into light—giving itself over to become energy that we, with every meal, partake of. The Sun converts itself into a flow of energy that photosynthesis changes into plants that are consumed by animals. Humans have been feasting on the Sun’s energy stored in the form of wheat or maize or reindeer as each day the Sun dies as Sun and is reborn as the vitality of Earth. These solar flares are in fact the very power of the vast human enterprise. Every child of ours needs to learn the simple truth: she is the energy of the Sun. And we adults should organize things so her face shines with the same radiant joy.
In The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (1996), 40-41.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Become (821)  |  Change (639)  |  Child (333)  |  Consume (13)  |  Cosmological (11)  |  Die (94)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Energy (373)  |  Enterprise (56)  |  Face (214)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Flow (89)  |  Form (976)  |  Human (1512)  |  Joy (117)  |  Learn (672)  |  Light (635)  |  Maize (4)  |  Meal (19)  |  Meaning (244)  |  New (1273)  |  Organize (33)  |  Photosynthesis (21)  |  Plant (320)  |  Power (771)  |  Radiant (15)  |  Reborn (2)  |  Reindeer (2)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Same (166)  |  Shine (49)  |  Simple (426)  |  Solar Flare (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Ton (25)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Vast (188)  |  Wheat (10)

Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts. For with all the variety of mathematical knowledge, we are still clearly conscious of the similarity of the logical devices, the relationship of the ideas in mathematics as a whole and the numerous analogies in its different departments.
In 'Mathematical Problems', Bulletin American Mathematical Society, 8, 478.
Science quotes on:  |  Analogy (76)  |  Clearly (45)  |  Condition (362)  |  Connection (171)  |  Conscious (46)  |  Department (93)  |  Device (71)  |  Different (595)  |  Idea (881)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Logical (57)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Nature Of Mathematics (80)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organism (231)  |  Part (235)  |  Relationship (114)  |  Similarity (32)  |  Still (614)  |  Variety (138)  |  Whole (756)

My present and most fixed opinion regarding the nature of alcoholic fermentation is this: The chemical act of fermentation is essentially a phenomenon correlative with a vital act, beginning and ending with the latter. I believe that there is never any alcoholic fermentation without their being simultaneously the organization, development, multiplication of the globules, or the pursued, continued life of globules which are already formed.
In 'Memoire sur la fermentation alcoolique', Annales de Chemie et de Physique (1860), 58:3, 359-360, as translated in Joseph S. Fruton, Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  Act (278)  |  Alcohol (22)  |  Already (226)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Being (1276)  |  Chemical (303)  |  Correlation (19)  |  Development (441)  |  Ending (3)  |  Essential (210)  |  Fermentation (15)  |  Form (976)  |  Formation (100)  |  Globule (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Most (1728)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Never (1089)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Organization (120)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Present (630)  |  Pursuit (128)  |  Simultaneity (3)  |  Vital (89)

Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should lie. Thus, next after lifeless things comes the plant, and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount of apparent vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life as compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. Indeed, as we just remarked, there is observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So, in the sea, there are certain objects concerning which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. For instance, certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if detached.
Aristotle
History of Animals, 588b, 4-14. In Jonathan Barnes (ed.) The Complete Works of Aristotle (1984), Vol. 1, 922.
Science quotes on:  |  Amount (153)  |  Animal (651)  |  Animal Life (21)  |  Apparent (85)  |  Certain (557)  |  Continuous (83)  |  Determine (152)  |  Differ (88)  |  Endowed (52)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Form (976)  |  Genus (27)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Intermediate (38)  |  Lie (370)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lifeless (15)  |  Little (717)  |  Loss (117)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Next (238)  |  Object (438)  |  Observed (149)  |  Other (2233)  |  Perish (56)  |  Plant (320)  |  Proceed (134)  |  Root (121)  |  Scale (122)  |  Sea (326)  |  Side (236)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Vegetable (49)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whole (756)  |  Will (2350)  |  Word (650)

Part of the strength of science is that it has tended to attract individuals who love knowledge and the creation of it.
Just as important to the integrity of science have been the unwritten rules of the game. These provide recognition and approbation for work which is imaginative and accurate, and apathy or criticism for the trivial or inaccurate. … Thus, it is the communication process which is at the core of the vitality and integrity of science.
Editorial, 'The Roots of Scientific Integrity', Science (1963), 3561. In Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May 1965), 29.
Science quotes on:  |  Accurate (88)  |  Attract (25)  |  Communication (101)  |  Core (20)  |  Creation (350)  |  Criticism (85)  |  Game (104)  |  Individual (420)  |  Integrity (21)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Love (328)  |  Process (439)  |  Recognition (93)  |  Rule (307)  |  Strength (139)  |  Tend (124)  |  Tendency (110)  |  Trivial (59)  |  Work (1402)

The moral attitudes of a people that is supported by religion need always aim at preserving and promoting the sanity and vitality of the community and its individuals, since otherwise this community is bound to perish. A people that were to honor falsehood, defamation, fraud, and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.
…...
Science quotes on:  |  Aim (175)  |  Attitude (84)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bound (120)  |  Community (111)  |  Defamation (2)  |  Falsehood (30)  |  Fraud (15)  |  Honor (57)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Long (778)  |  Moral (203)  |  Murder (16)  |  Need (320)  |  Otherwise (26)  |  People (1031)  |  Perish (56)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Preserving (18)  |  Promote (32)  |  Religion (369)  |  Sanity (9)  |  Subsist (5)  |  Support (151)  |  Unable (25)

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure—our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
In Second Inaugural Address (21 Jan 2013) at the United States Capitol.
Science quotes on:  |  America (143)  |  Care (203)  |  Cede (2)  |  Claim (154)  |  Command (60)  |  Creed (28)  |  Crop (26)  |  Declare (48)  |  Declared (24)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Economic (84)  |  Energy (373)  |  Father (113)  |  Forest (161)  |  God (776)  |  Industry (159)  |  Job (86)  |  Lead (391)  |  Long (778)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Meaning (244)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  National (29)  |  New (1273)  |  Other (2233)  |  Path (159)  |  Peak (20)  |  Planet (402)  |  Power (771)  |  Preserve (91)  |  Promise (72)  |  Resist (15)  |  Snow (39)  |  Source (101)  |  Sustainable (14)  |  Sustainable Energy (3)  |  Technology (281)  |  Transition (28)  |  Treasure (59)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Wind Power (10)

The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illuminated with any spark of vitality. Let the main ideas which are introduced into a child’s education be few and important, and let them be thrown into every combination possible.
In The Organisation of Thought: Educational and Scientific (1917), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Combination (150)  |  Disconnected (3)  |  Education (423)  |  Few (15)  |  Idea (881)  |  Illuminate (26)  |  Important (229)  |  Introduce (63)  |  Large (398)  |  Main (29)  |  Number (710)  |  Part (235)  |  Passive (8)  |  Possible (560)  |  Reception (16)  |  Result (700)  |  Small (489)  |  Spark (32)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teaching (190)

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.
In Alfred North Whitehead and Lucien Price (ed.), Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954, 1977), 100.
Science quotes on:  |  Adventure (69)  |  Age (509)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Custodian (3)  |  Die (94)  |  Do (1905)  |  Down (455)  |  Fervor (8)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inherit (35)  |  Keep (104)  |  Live (650)  |  Middle Age (19)  |  Must (1525)  |  New (1273)  |  Receive (117)  |  Settle (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Strong (182)  |  Successful (134)  |  Thought (995)  |  Turn (454)

The wonderful structure of the animal system will probably never permit us to look upon it as a merely physical apparatus, yet the demands of science require that the evidently magnified principles of vitality should be reduced to their natural spheres, or if truth requires, wholly subverted in favor of those more cognizable by the human understanding. The spirit of the age will not tolerate in the devotee of science a quiet indifference. ...
In 'An Inquiry, Analogical and Experimental, into the Different Electrical conditions of Arterial and Venous Blood', New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal (1853-4), 10, 584-602 & 738-757. As cited in George B. Roth, 'Dr. John Gorrie—Inventor of Artificial Ice and Mechanical Refrigeration', The Scientific Monthly (May 1936) 42 No. 5, 464-469.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Animal (651)  |  Apparatus (70)  |  Demand (131)  |  Evidently (26)  |  Favor (69)  |  Human (1512)  |  Indifference (16)  |  Look (584)  |  Merely (315)  |  More (2558)  |  Natural (810)  |  Never (1089)  |  Permit (61)  |  Physical (518)  |  Principle (530)  |  Quiet (37)  |  Require (229)  |  Sphere (118)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Structure (365)  |  System (545)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Understanding (527)  |  Wholly (88)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wonderful (155)

To teach effectively a teacher must develop a feeling for his subject; he cannot make his students sense its vitality if he does not sense it himself. He cannot share his enthusiasm when he has no enthusiasm to share. How he makes his point may be as important as the point he makes; he must personally feel it to be important.
Mathematical Methods in Science (1963, 1977), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Enthusiasm (59)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Himself (461)  |  Importance (299)  |  Must (1525)  |  Point (584)  |  Sense (785)  |  Share (82)  |  Sharing (11)  |  Student (317)  |  Subject (543)  |  Teach (299)  |  Teacher (154)

Tyndall declared that he saw in Matter the promise and potency of all forms of life, and with his Irish graphic lucidity made a picture of a world of magnetic atoms, each atom with a positive and a negative pole, arranging itself by attraction and repulsion in orderly crystalline structure. Such a picture is dangerously fascinating to thinkers oppressed by the bloody disorders of the living world. Craving for purer subjects of thought, they find in the contemplation of crystals and magnets a happiness more dramatic and less childish than the happiness found by mathematicians in abstract numbers, because they see in the crystals beauty and movement without the corrupting appetites of fleshly vitality.
In Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), lxi-lxii.
Science quotes on:  |  Abstract (141)  |  Appetite (20)  |  Atom (381)  |  Attraction (61)  |  Beauty (313)  |  Childish (20)  |  Contemplation (75)  |  Crystal (71)  |  Declared (24)  |  Disorder (45)  |  Dramatic (19)  |  Fascinating (38)  |  Find (1014)  |  Form (976)  |  Happiness (126)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Lucidity (7)  |  Magnet (22)  |  Magnetic (44)  |  Magnetism (43)  |  Matter (821)  |  More (2558)  |  Movement (162)  |  Negative (66)  |  Number (710)  |  Orderly (38)  |  Picture (148)  |  Pole (49)  |  Positive (98)  |  Potency (10)  |  Promise (72)  |  Repulsion (7)  |  Saw (160)  |  See (1094)  |  Structure (365)  |  Subject (543)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thought (995)  |  John Tyndall (53)  |  World (1850)

We must ascribe to all cells an independent vitality; that is, such combinations of molecules as occur in any single cell are capable of setting free the power by which it is enabled to take up fresh molecules.
In Theodor Schwann and Henry Smith (trans.), 'Theory of the Cells', Microscopical Researches Into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants (1839, 1847), 192.
Science quotes on:  |  Biology (232)  |  Capable (174)  |  Cell (146)  |  Combination (150)  |  Free (239)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Must (1525)  |  Occur (151)  |  Power (771)  |  Setting (44)  |  Single (365)

With advancing years new impressions do not enter so rapidly, nor are they so hospitably received… There is a gradual diminution of the opportunities for age to acquire fresh knowledge. A tree grows old not by loss of the vitality of the cambium, but by the gradual increase of the wood, the non-vital tissue, which so easily falls a prey to decay.
From address, 'A Medical Retrospect'. Published in Yale Medical Journal (Oct 1910), 17, No. 2, 59. The context is that he is reflecting on how in later years of life, a person tends to give priority to long-learned experience, rather than give attention to new points of view.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Decay (59)  |  Diminution (5)  |  Do (1905)  |  Enter (145)  |  Fall (243)  |  Fresh (69)  |  Gradual (30)  |  Grow (247)  |  Hospitable (3)  |  Impression (118)  |  Increase (225)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Loss (117)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Old Age (35)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Rapid (37)  |  Rapidly (67)  |  Receive (117)  |  Tissue (51)  |  Tree (269)  |  Vital (89)  |  Wood (97)  |  Year (963)


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.