19th-century Entomologist Quotes

Jean Henri Fabre
William Beebe
William Morton Wheeler
James Francis Stephens
John Henry Comstock
David Sharp (entomologist)
Charles H. Fernald

In his soul, as in a mirror, were concentrated all the lights radiating from every point of observation — whether human or Divine — and from his soul as from a mirror, these lights were reflected back in every possible combination of beauty and sublimity.

James Francis Stephens
James Francis Stephens
When once it has been seen, it will remain forever the most vivid memory in life, solely because of its cosmic chill and isolation, the eternal and absolute darkness and the indescribable beauty of its inhabitants.

William Beebe
William Beebe
True, it [geometry] does not bestow imagination, a delicate flower blossoming none knows how and unable to thrive on every soil; but it arranges what is confused, thins out the dense, calms the tumultuous, filters the muddy and gives lucidity, a superior product to all the tropes of rhetoric.

Jean Henri Fabre
Jean Henri Fabre
The Entomologist who broadens the horizon of his observations becomes better able to grasp and comprehend the great problems presented to him.

Charles H. Fernald
Charles H. Fernald
Fill your note-book with descriptions, but digest them carefully, sifting out for publication only those that exhaustive study and repeated observations prove to be valuable.

John Henry Comstock
John Henry Comstock
Since no two events are identical, every atom, molecule, organism, personality, and society is an emergent and, at least to some extent, a novelty.

William Morton Wheeler
William Morton Wheeler
The biologist seems unable to escape from the use of a terminology that is to be found in the larger dictionaries — and these dictionaries are at home, while the public is in the lecture-hall.

Birds are the fluctuating check on insect life, the safety valve as it were; they congregate where they find insects, regardless of their species or habits, and constantly consume the superfluous and the superabundant insect life.

No other insects can compete with the mosquitoes as persistent annoyers of man, and none, with the possible exception of the rat-flea, hold over him such power for evil.

The only definition that can be given of Heterocera is the practical one that all Lepidoptera that are not butterflies are Heterocera.

David Sharp (entomologist)
David Sharp (entomologist)
To the scientific mind the living and the non-living form one continuous series of systems of differing degrees of complexity., while to the philosophic mind the whole universe, itself perhaps an organism, is composed of a vast number of interlacing organisms of all sizes.

People think entomologists have small minds because they interest themselves in small animals.

If man were really descended from a prehistoric ancestor, common to him and to the apes of the present day, there must surely be some fossil trace left of his branch of the genealogical tree, and not only traces of the branch leading to apes!

From red-bugs and bed-bugs, from sand-flies and landflies, Mosquitoes, gallnippers and fleas, From hog-ticks and dog-ticks, from hen-lice and men-lice, We pray thee, good Lord, give us ease.