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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > Harris Hawthorne Wilder Quotes

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Harris Hawthorne Wilder
(7 Apr 1864 - 27 Feb 1928)

American zoologist and anthropologist who taught at Smith College for 36 years. He discovered a species of salamanders without lungs or gills, and developed a system for reconstructing a lifelike human face solely from the measurements taken a skull. He wrote five major books in his field.

Science Quotes by Harris Hawthorne Wilder (3 quotes)

Built up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, together with traces of a few other elements, yet of a complexity of structure that has hitherto resisted all attempts at complete analysis, protoplasm is at once the most enduring and the most easily destroyed of substances; its molecules are constantly breaking down to furnish the power for the manifestations of vital phenomena, and yet, through its remarkable property of assimilation, a power possessed by nothing else upon earth, it constantly builds up its substance anew from the surrounding medium.
— Harris Hawthorne Wilder
In History of the Human Body (1919), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Anew (19)  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Build (211)  |  Carbon (68)  |  Complete (209)  |  Complexity (121)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Destruction (135)  |  Down (455)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Enduring (6)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Manifestation (61)  |  Medium (15)  |  Molecule (185)  |  Most (1728)  |  Nitrogen (32)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Other (2233)  |  Oxygen (77)  |  Phenomenon (334)  |  Possess (157)  |  Power (771)  |  Property (177)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Resistance (41)  |  Structure (365)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Together (392)  |  Trace (109)  |  Vital (89)

One of the grandest generalizations formulated by modern biological science is that of the continuity of life; the protoplasmic activity within each living body now on earth has continued without cessation from the remote beginnings of life on our planet, and from that period until the present no single organism has ever arisen save in the form of a bit of living protoplasm detached from a pre-existing portion; the eternal flame of life once kindled upon this earth has passed from organism to organism, and is still, going on existing and propagating, incarnated within the myriad animal and plant forms of everyday life.
— Harris Hawthorne Wilder
In History of the Human Body (1919), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Animal (651)  |  Arise (162)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Biological (137)  |  Biology (232)  |  Body (557)  |  Cessation (13)  |  Continuation (20)  |  Continuity (39)  |  Detach (5)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Everyday (32)  |  Everyday Life (15)  |  Evolution (635)  |  Existence (481)  |  Flame (44)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Generalization (61)  |  Grandest (10)  |  Incarnation (3)  |  Kindled (2)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Living Body (3)  |  Modern (402)  |  Myriad (32)  |  Organism (231)  |  Pass (241)  |  Period (200)  |  Planet (402)  |  Plant (320)  |  Portion (86)  |  Present (630)  |  Propagation (15)  |  Protoplasm (13)  |  Remote (86)  |  Save (126)  |  Single (365)  |  Still (614)

Through [the growing organism's] power of assimilation there is a constant encroachment of the organic upon the inorganic, a constant attempt to convert all available material into living substance, and to indefinitely multiply the total number of individual organisms.
— Harris Hawthorne Wilder
In History of the Human Body (1919), 2.
Science quotes on:  |  Assimilation (13)  |  Attempt (266)  |  Available (80)  |  Constant (148)  |  Conversion (17)  |  Encroachment (2)  |  Growing (99)  |  Growth (200)  |  Indefinitely (10)  |  Individual (420)  |  Inorganic (14)  |  Life (1870)  |  Living (492)  |  Material (366)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Multiply (40)  |  Number (710)  |  Organic (161)  |  Organism (231)  |  Power (771)  |  Substance (253)  |  Through (846)  |  Total (95)


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)
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- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
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Leonardo DaVinci
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- 30 -
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Richard Feynman
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- 20 -
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