18th-century Scientist Quotes

Antoine Lavoisier

Humphry Davy

Alessandro Volta

John Dalton

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Hans Christian Ørsted

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac

How pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves

Benjamin Banneker

The first step to be taken, is to study carefully the fundamental phenomenon above described, and to examine all the various circumstances under which it presents itself.

Jean-Baptiste Biot

On graduating from the school, a studious young man who would withstand the tedium and monotony of his duties has no choice but to lose himself in some branch of science or literature completely irrelevant to his assignment.

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Winds have ever been considered, with reason, as having a principal share in producing changes of weather, and therefore they demand a particular regard in meteorology.

[Hypotheses were] part of the scaffolding of the building of science [rather] than as belonging either to its foundations, materials, or ornaments.

As the Knowledge of Nature tends to enlarge the human Mind, and give us more noble, more grand, and exalted Ideas of the AUTHOR of Nature, and if well pursu'd, seldom fails producing something useful to Man.

Ebenezer Kinnersley

In performing experiments, it is a necessary principle, which ought never to be deviated from, that they be simplified as much as possible, and that every circumstance capable of rendering their results complicated be carefully removed.

Antoine Lavoisier

As soon as you know a man to be blind, you imagine that you can see it from his back.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience, from the dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along been floundering between species and variety, which certainly under culture soften into each other.

Patrick Matthew

Added to this we already see numerous indications of a future, in which the chemical and mechanical laws of nature will be more intimately united. In short, the natural laws of chemistry, as well as those of mechanics, are laws of Reason, and both are so intimately connected, that they must be viewed as a unity of Reason.

Hans Christian Ørsted

Approximavit sidera He brought the stars closer

Joseph von Fraunhofer

It should ever be borne in mind that the primary object of every study ought to be an inward one that of enlarging and elevating the intellect; and the direct aim of science should be the discovery of the principles of unity, order, and connexion, which are everywhere manifest in the universal life of nature.

The first thoughts, which gave rise to his Principia, he had, when he retired from Cambridge in 1666 on account of the plague. As he sat alone in a garden, he fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself.

Henry Pemberton

There prevails here [Charleston] a finer manner of life, and on the whole, there are more evidences of courtesy than in the northern cities.

Johann David Schoepf

The language of experiment is more authoritative than any reasoning: facts can destroy our ratiocination—not vice versa.

Alessandro Volta

Each man who receives a liberal education today counts chemistry as one of the indispensable parts of his studies.

Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy

I. Animals have an electricity peculiar to themselves to which the name animal electricity is given.
II. The organs in which animal electricity acts above all others, and by which it is distributed throughout the whole body, are the nerves, and the most important organ of secretion is the brain.

Christian Heinrich Pfaff

Everyone now agrees that a physics lacking all connection with mathematics...would only be an historical amusement, fitter for entertaining the idle than for occupying the mind of a philosopher.

Franz Karl Achard

For you teach very clearly by your behaviour how slowly and how meagerly our senses proceed in the investigation of ever inexhaustible nature.

Giovanni Battista Beccaria

There are only individuals, and no kingdoms or classes or genera or species.

Jean-Baptiste-René Robinet