Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier Quotes
27 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
We think only through the medium of words. Languages are true analytical methods. Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method. The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
It ought likewise to be considered, that very little of chemistry can be learned in a first course, which is hardly sufficient to make the language of the science familiar to the ears, or the apparatus familiar to the eyes. It is almost impossible to become a chemist in less than three or four years of constant application.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Mathematicians obtain the solution of a problem by the mere arrangement of data, and by reducing their reasoning to such simple steps, to conclusions so very obvious, as never to lose sight of the evidence which guides them.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Facts, observations, experiments — these are the materials of a great edifice, but in assembling them we must combine them into classes, distinguish which belongs to which order and to which part of the whole each pertains.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
One will not deny me, I trust, all the theory of oxidation and combustion; the analysis and decomposition of air by metals and combustible bodies...
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Experiments upon vegetation give reason to believe that light combines with certain parts of vegetables, and that the green of their leaves, and the various colors of flowers, is chiefly owing to this combination.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
When we begin the study of any science, we are in a situation, respecting that science, similar to that of children; and the course by which we have to advance is precisely the same which nature follow in the formation of their ideas.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Science still has many chasms, which interrupt the series of facts and often render it expremely difficult to reconcile them with each other...
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
One day the precision of the data might be brought to such perfection that the mathematician in his study would be able to calculate any phenomenon of chemical combination in the same way... as he calculates the movement of the heavenly bodies.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
System is necessary in every science. It not only assists in the acquisition of knowledge, but enables us to retain what is thus acquired; and, by the laws of association, to call forth at will what is treasured up in the storehouse of the mind.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
However certain the facts of any science may be, and, however just the ideas we may have formed of these facts, we can only communicate false impressions to others, while we want words by which these may be properly expressed.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
As chemistry advances towards perfection by dividing and subdividing, it is impossible to say where it will end; and these things we at present suppose simple may soon be found quite otherwise.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
As the usefulness and accuracy of chemistry depend entirely upon the determination of the weights of the ingredients and products, too much precision cannot be employed in this part of the subject; and for this purpose, we must be provided with good instruments.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
The only method of preventing such errors from taking place, and of correcting them when formed, is to restrain and simplify our reasoning as much as possible. This depends entirely upon ourselves, and the neglect of it is the only source of our mistakes.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
If, by the term elements, we mean to express the simple and indivisible molecules that compose bodies, it is probable that we know nothing about them; but if, on the contrary, we express by the term elements or principles of bodies the idea of the last point reached by analysis, all substances that we have not yet been able to decompose by any means are elements to us.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
I find myself confronted with the task of settling by decisive experiments a question of interest in physics, namely, whether water can be changed into earth, as was thought by the old philosophers, and still is thought by some chemists of the day.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
If everything in chemistry is explained in a satisfactory manner without the help of phlogiston, it is by that reason alone infinitely probable that the principle does not exist; that it is a hypothetical body, a gratuitous supposition; indeed, it is in the principles of good logic, not to multiply bodies without necessity.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Thus, while I thought myself employed only in forming a Nomenclature, and while I proposed to myself nothing more than to improve the chemical language, my work transformed itself by degrees, without my being able to prevent it, into a treatise upon the Elements of Chemistry.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
The impossibility of separating the nomenclature of a science from the science itself, is owing to this, that every branch of physical science must consist of three things; the series of facts which are the objects of the science, the ideas which represent these facts, and the words by which these ideas are expressed. Like three impressions of the same seal, the word ought to produce the idea, and the idea to be a picture of the fact.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Here, then: a revolution [in science and chemistry] has taken place in an important part of human knowledge since your departure from Europe... I will consider this revolution to be well advanced and even completely accomplished if you range yourself with us.... After having brought you up to date on what is happening in chemistry, it would be well to speak to you about our political revolution. We regard it as done and without any possibility of return to the old order.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
We may lay it down as an incontestible axiom, that, in all the operations of art and nature, nothing is created; an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the experiment; the quality and quantity of the elements remain precisely the same; and nothing takes place beyond changes and modifications in the combination of these elements. Upon this principle the whole art of performing chemical experiments depends: We must always suppose an exact equality between the elements of the body examined and those of the products of its analysis.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.
Antoine Lavoisier
Source
Report...
As ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science, without at the same time improving the science itself; neither can we, on the other hand, improve a science without improving the language or nomenclature which belongs to it.
Antoine Lavoisier
1
2
Quote of the day
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
Martin Luther
Antoine Lavoisier
Creative Commons
Born:
August 26, 1743
Died:
May 8, 1794
(aged 50)
Bio:
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a French nobleman and chemist central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology.
Known for:
Elements of chemistry
Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789)
Memoir on Heat
Antoine Lavoisier on Wikipedia
Antoine Lavoisier works on Gutenberg Project
Antoine Lavoisier works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
French Chemist Quotes
Chemist Quotes
18th-century Chemist Quotes
Related People
John Dalton
English Chemist
Joseph Priestley
English Theologian
Robert Boyle
English Natural philosopher
Joseph Proust
French Chemist
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes