19th-century Scientist Quotes

Organic Chemistry has become a vast rubbish heap of puzzling and bewildering compounds.

J. Norman Collie

Facts not explained by the existing theories are probably the most valuable for science, for their study is most likely to lead to its early advancement.

Alexander Butlerov

Unless the chemist learns the language of mathematics, he will become a provincial and the higher branches of chemical work, that require reason as well as skill, will gradually pass out of his hands.

Alexander Crum Brown

All statements about the hydrides of boron earlier than 1912, when Stock began to work upon them, are untrue.

Chemistry must become the astronomy of the molecular world.

Chemistry without catalysis, would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.

On a particular substance contained in the seawater.

Title of his work on the discovery of Bromine

Antoine Jérôme Balard

When we are confronted with facts which we see no possibility of understanding save on a single hypothesis, even though it be an undemonstratable one, we are naturally led to accept the hypothesis, at least until a better one can be found.

August Weismann

I would trade all my experimental works for the single idea of the benzene theory.

August Wilhelm von Hofmann

I was an impostor, the worthy associate of a brigand, &c., &c., and all this for an atom of chlorine put in the place of an atom of hydrogen, for the simple correction of a chemical formula!

Auguste Laurent

Research workers were, at one time, obliged to endeavor to ensure that their theories did not contradict those of the Church, nowadays, in contrast, the Church is at pains to prove that its teachings are compatible with those of Science. In other words, the Church acknowledges Science as the higher authority.

Wolfgang Ostwald

The triumph of a theory is to embrace the greatest number and the greatest variety of facts.

Charles-Adolphe Wurtz

It is difficult, however, for a person to be comprehensible and at the same time remain scientific, so I must ask you to bear with me.

An equal number of atoms, combined in the same way produce the same crystal forms, and the same crystal form does not depend on the nature of the atoms, but only on their number and mode of combination.

Eilhard Mitscherlich

Whenever the organism enjoys immunity, the introduction of infectious microbes is followed by the accumulation of mobile cells, of white corpuscles of the blood in particular which absorb the microbes and destroy them.

Élie Metchnikoff

Some sort of false logic has crept into our schools, for the people whom I have seen doing housework or cooking know nothing of botany or chemistry, and the people who know botany and chemistry do not cook or sweep. The conclusion seems to be, if one knows chemistry she must not cook or do housework.

Ellen Swallow Richards

The abundance of substances of which animals and plants are composed, the remarkable processes whereby they are formed and then broken down again have claimed the attention of mankind of old, and hence from the early days they also persistently captivated the interest of chemists.

Hermann Emil Fischer

In physiology, as in all other sciences, no discovery is useless, no curiosity misplaced or too ambitious, and we may be certain that every advance achieved in the quest of pure knowledge will sooner or later play its part in the service of man.

Ernest Starling

The term Invertebrata is also a mere collective name; it is employed to designate all animals which do not belong to the phylum Vertebrata. Like the name Metazoa its convenience in promoting terseness of expression is its only justification.

Ernest MacBride

The whole history of physics proves that a new discovery is quite likely lurking in the next decimal place.

Floyd K. Richtmyer

It is more important to know the properties of chlorine than the improprieties of Claudius!

Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell

Someone has said that the benzene theory appeared like a meteor from the sky. It came absolutely new and uninitiated. The human mind does not work in this manner. Nothing has ever been thought of which is absolutely new, certainly not in chemistry...

Friedrich August Kekulé

No other substance in organic chemistry attracts the attention of the physiologist and chemist to a higher degree than uric acid.

Friedrich Wöhler

Everyone believes in the normal law, the experimenters because they imagine that it is a mathematical theorem, and the mathematicians because they think it is an experimental fact.

Gabriel Lippmann

See all electrons are alike, and presumably leave no trail behind them, we cannot say that atom A loses an electron to atom B and atom C to atom D, but only that Atoms A and C have each lost an electron and atoms B and D have each gained one.

Gilbert N. Lewis