19th-century Geographer Quotes

Richard Francis Burton
Élisée Reclus
Halford Mackinder
William Morris Davis
Ellsworth Huntington
Ellen Churchill Semple

Life, atom of that Infinite Space that stretcheth, 'twixt the Here and There.

Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton
The human organism inherits so delicate an adjustment to climate that, in spite of man's boasted ability to live anywhere, the strain of the frozen North eliminates the more nervous and active types of mind.

Ellsworth Huntington
Ellsworth Huntington
If the great geological labours of the oceans, such as the erosion of cliffs, the demolition of promontories, and the construction of new shores, astonish the mind of man by their grandeur, on the other hand, the thousand details of the stands and beaches charm by their infinite grace and marvelous variety.

Élisée Reclus
Élisée Reclus
Science is therefore not final any more than it is infallible.

William Morris Davis
William Morris Davis
We had now entered the notorious county of Tipperary, in which more murders and assaults are committed in one year than in the whole Kingdom of Saxony in five.

We have not yet learned the difference between yield and loot.

Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island controls the world.

Halford Mackinder
Halford Mackinder
The important characteristic of plains is their power to facilitate every phase of historical movement; that of mountains is their power to retard, arrest, or deflect it. Man, as part of the mobile envelope of the earth, like air and water feels always the pull of gravity.

Ellen Churchill Semple
Ellen Churchill Semple