18th-century Naturalist Quotes

Georges Cuvier
John James Audubon
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Joseph Banks
Lorenz Oken
William Bartram
Henry Baker (naturalist)

In geology we cannot dispense with conjectures: [but] because we are condemned to dream let us ensure that our dreams are like those of sane men—e.g. that they have their foundations in truth—and are not like the dreams of the sick, formed by strange combinations of phantasms, contrary to nature and therefore incredible.

Natural history is the most extensive, and perhaps the most instructive and entertaining of all the sciences. It is the chief source from which human knowledge is derived. To recommend the study of it from motives of utility, were to affront the understanding of mankind.

William Smellie (encyclopedist)
William Smellie (encyclopedist)
The flowers and ground together make so pretty a piece of tapestry, that one might be surprised to find such colouring and workmanship hid, as it were industriously, under a rock; but the works of Nature are every where well finished, and can not be otherwise than exact and beautiful in their degree.

Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.

When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what happened to me.

John Bachman
John Bachman
If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may without hesitation affirm, that the study of insects is one of the most delightful branches of natural history, for it affords peculiar facilities for its pursuit.

When you employ the Microscope, shake off all Prejudice, nor harbor any favorite Opinions; for, if you do, 'tis not unlikely Fancy will betray you into Error, and make you see what you wish to see.

Henry Baker (naturalist)
Henry Baker (naturalist)
His sparkling conversation flowed continually, and without effort, like an exuberant Artesian well. There was no straining for effect: all was easy...

Nothing can be more shocking to reason than eternal time; infinite divisibility is not less absurd.

Many species of wit are quite mechanical; these are the favorites of witlings, whose fame in words scarce outlives the remembrance of their funeral ceremonies.

With the exception of women, there is nothing on earth so agreeable or necessary to the comfort of man as the dog.

The language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical: little is said, but much is meant and understood.

The whole science of mathematics depends upon zero. Zero alone determines the value in mathematics. Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and, consequently, arises out of nothing.

Lorenz Oken
Lorenz Oken
If it be so interesting to us to follow, in the infancy of our species, the almost obliterated traces of extinct nations, why should it not also be so, to search, amid the darkness of the infancy of the Earth, for the traces of revolutions which have taken place anterior to the existence of all nations?

Georges Cuvier
Georges Cuvier
Who can say but your new Star [Uranus], which exceeds Saturn so much in its distance from the Sun, may exceed him as much in magnificence of attendance? Who knows what new rings, new satellites, or what other nameless and numberless phenomena remain behind, waiting to reward future industry and improvement?

Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Turkeys, quails, and small birds, are here to be seen; but birds are not numerous in desart forests; they draw near to the habitations of men, as I have constantly observed in all my travels.

William Bartram
William Bartram
He who is desirous of instruction ought not to disdain listening to any one, who has knowledge to communicate, however humble may be his lot, or however limited his talents.

John James Audubon
John James Audubon
In spite of the errors into which I may have been led, the work may possibly contain ideas and arguments that will have a certain value for the advancement of knowledge, until such time as the great subjects, with which I have ventured to deal, are treated anew by men capable of shedding further light upon them.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck