George Adams (1750-1795) Quotes

23 Sourced Quotes

The human mind, like a mirror, must be smoothed and polished, freed from false imaginations and perverted notions, before it is fit to receive and reflect the light of truth, and just information.

George Adams
One of the ends for which man was formed, is to correct appearances and errors, by the investigation of truth; whoever considers him attentively, from infancy to manhood, and from manhood to old age, will find him ever busy in endeavoring to find some reality, to supply the place of the false appearances, by which he has hitherto been deceived.

George Adams
Most of our philosophical instruments are measures of effects. The progress made in natural philosophy increases every day by the number of these measures; by these it still continues to be improved.

George Adams
Truth, though destined to be the guide of man, is not bestowed with an unconditional profusion; but is hidden in darkness, and involved in difficulties; intended, like all the other gifts of heaven, to be fought and cultivated by all the different powers and exertions of human reason.

George Adams
New stars offer to the mind a phenomenon more surprising, and less explicable, than almost any other in the science of astronomy.

George Adams
Mankind are always ready to adopt or reject what accords with pre-conceived opinions, to make reason subservient to prejudice, and to reject without examination, whatever is discordant with a received system; thus closing the door of science, and excluding themselves from the benefit of light.

George Adams
As you advance in the knowledge of nature's varieties, your mind will be opened, and you will find fresh ornament in truth, fresh dignity in devotion, and fresh reason in religion.

George Adams
The end of natural philosophy is to increase either the knowledge or power of man, and enable him to understand the ways and procedure of nature. By discovering the laws of nature, he acquires knowledge, and obtains power; for when these laws are discovered, he can use them as rules of practice, to equal, subdue, or even excel nature by art.

George Adams
The two kingdoms of nature and grace, as two parallel lines, correspond to each other, follow a like course, but can never be made to touch. An adequate understanding of this distinction in all its branches, would be the consummation of human knowledge.

George Adams
The eyes are placed in the most eminent part of the body, near the brain, the seat of sensation.

George Adams
When the spark or atom of fire lies hid in primary matter, it is dark, deformed, and in no ways promising such a fair contexture and life as it will be clothed with when it has built it's house or body, in which it seems dormant awhile. In this sense it was Vulcan deformis.

George Adams
The best directed and most successful researches only inform us how little is known, and give us no cause to be satisfied with the discoveries they have made.

George Adams
Conjecture may lead you to form opinions, but it cannot produce knowledge. Natural philosophy must be built upon the phenomena of nature discovered by observation and experiment.

George Adams
Man has before him all nature, the whole world with which he is surrounded for the object of his view, and the subject of his consideration; but his capacity is so circumscribed, his knowledge so straightened, his powers so limited, that he can by no means conceive the mechanism of so vast and complicate a structure.

George Adams
Nothing can be more shocking to reason than eternal time; infinite divisibility is not less absurd.

George Adams
The eyes are a faithful guard to the whole man, and are placed as in a friendly watch-tower, to discern his danger, and give him friendly warning, while it is yet far off.

George Adams
The black and the blue are the most beautiful colours, and give the most fire and vivacity of expression to the eye. In black eyes there is more force and impetuosity; but the blue excel in sweetness and delicacy.

George Adams
Air is a fluid into which you are plunged the moment you are born, and without which you would in a moment be deprived of life.

George Adams
God pervades infinity, and sees through eternity...

George Adams
The more diligent our search, the more accurate our scrutiny, the more we are convinced that our labours can never finish, and that subjects inexhaustible remain behind still unexplored.

George Adams
The principles of all knowledge are founded in mind; the mind of man, either animated by desire or pressed by necessity, puts in action it's various energies, and unfolds the seeds of knowledge.

George Adams
The natural propensity of the human mind to know the cause of every effect often leads men into errors, and makes them satisfied with a word which does not remove their ignorance.

George Adams
The study of nature is as much distinguished from other subjects by the importance of its matter, as by the variety of its topics.

George Adams