18th-century Scientist Quotes

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

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

One observer will relate an event with the most extravagant encomiums; another will detract from its real merit; a third, by some oblique insinuation, will cast suspicion on the motive; and a fourth will represent it as a crime of the blackest dye. These different descriptions represent the character of the respective observers.

Torbern Bergman

The particle and the planet are subject to the same laws and what is learned of one will be known of the other.

Great Britain may certainly continue to uphold her envied supremacy, sustained by her coal, iron, capital, and skill, if, acting on the Baconian axiom, " Knowledge is Power," she shall diligently promote moral and professional culture among all ranks of her productive population.

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

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

Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy

If the coalescence of the globules of yeast can be ascribed to the presence of vegetable life, the same reason might well be assumed for the coalescence of globules of clay or calcium phosphate.

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

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

Chemistry is not yet a science. We are very far from the knowledge of first principles. We should avoid every thing that has the pretensions of a full system. The whole of chemical science should, as yet, be analytical, like Newton's Optics, in the form of a general law, at the very end of our induction, as the reward of our labour.

The number of known metals had been increased by one — from 17 to 18.... A few years ago we thrilled to hear of the discovery of the final planet by Sir William Herschel. He calls the new member of our solar system Uranus. I propose to borrow from the honor of that great discovery and call this new element Uranium.

Martin Heinrich Klaproth

It almost always happens that true, but exaggerated, coloring is more agreeable than absolute coloring.

Michel Eugène Chevreul

We must recognize an invisible hand which holds the balance in the formation of compounds. A compound is a substance to which Nature assigns fixed ratios, it is, in short, a being which Nature never creates other than balance in hand, pondere et mensurd.

As the History of any Science ought to relate the labours, the discoveries, and the errors of the cultivators of that Science; and to shew the obstacles which they have been obliged to surmount, and the mistaken paths into which they have sometimes been misled; it cannot therefore fail of being very useful to persons engaged in the same pursuits.

Sand in reality is nothing else than very small stones...

Axel Fredrik Cronstedt

Approximavit sidera He brought the stars closer

Joseph von Fraunhofer

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

Alessandro Volta

To be in a position to discover the laws which link phenomena together, it is important to make use of the very powerful instrument of calculation ("le calcul ") by means of which one may more easily grasp the relations between bodies.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac