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John Arthur Thomson Quotes
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Chemistry is mainly the science of the different kinds of matter, their transformations, affinities, and interactions. It is par excellence the science of molecules and atoms.
John Arthur Thomson
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Every creature is a bundle of adaptations. Indeed, as Weismann says of the whale, "When we take away the adaptations, what have we left?"
John Arthur Thomson
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When our aim is to get a grip of scientific method, we are more likely to succeed by settling down to the thorough study of some one order of facts, than by indulging in an intellectual ramble through the universe.
John Arthur Thomson
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Nowadays, except in the outskirts of civilisation, there are few wild beasts that worry man much, the serpent that bites his heel is usually more or less microscopic.
John Arthur Thomson
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Questions that the biologist must ask and answer before he can go far in generalization appear at first sight to be very numerous and varied, but, from a certain distance, we see that there are only four: What is this living creature as regards form and structure? How does it work? Whence has it arisen? How has it come to be as it is?
John Arthur Thomson
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As among plants and animals, so among lifeless things there is extraordinary heterogeneity. There are over eighty different kinds of elements; the number of different minerals is legion; the multitude of the stars is untold.
John Arthur Thomson
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The world is like a change-office, without increase or decrease in its initial stock. We always stand in the middle of an equation, past equalling future. It is for the biologist to correct this partial view, for to him the possible that grows out of the past is new and in some measure unpredictable.
John Arthur Thomson
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The past lives on in the present, that is what is meant by heredity.
John Arthur Thomson
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The eyes of the investigator have neither laughter nor tears. In the actual work of science, emotion is dangerous.
John Arthur Thomson
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The Doctrine of Evolution states the fact that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future.
John Arthur Thomson
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From the physicist's point of view, the living organism resembles, as we have already said, some wonderful kind of engine.
John Arthur Thomson
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The first step in beginning the scientific study of a problem is to collect the data, which are or ought to be "facts."
John Arthur Thomson
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The raw material of observation is not rare like gold or diamonds, but near to us as sunshine and rain-drops.
John Arthur Thomson
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As we begin to feel at home in Nature, our wonder grows into delight and what may almost be called affection. This is true of those who have what Meredith called "love exceeding a simple love of the things that glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck."
John Arthur Thomson
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Too great specialization leads to pedantry; too little of it to superficiality.
John Arthur Thomson
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It is certain, though rarely realized, that Science has precious gifts to place in the hands of Art that she may fashion them magically into beauty.
John Arthur Thomson
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The simple and open mind is always impressed by the bigness of Nature.
John Arthur Thomson
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The most powerful factors in the world are clear ideas in the minds of energetic men of good will.
John Arthur Thomson
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When we pass from ordinary sight to scientific vision, how subtle and ethereal matter becomes! What pictures modern physics gives us of a restless activity suggestive of life!
John Arthur Thomson
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Obeying the living hand of the past which is within them.
John Arthur Thomson
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Science is a kind of knowledge which gives descriptions and laws reached by observation and experiment. It is not the only kind of knowledge, it is not the only pathway towards truth - but it is indispensable.
John Arthur Thomson
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Science expresses a quite specific endeavor to get phenomena under intellectual control, so that we can think of them economically and clearly in relation to the rest of our science, and so that we can use them as a basis for secure prediction and effective action.
John Arthur Thomson
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The vital striving and struggling characteristic of the realm of organisms is something apart from and finer than even the music of the spheres.
John Arthur Thomson
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Although science is not in itself practical, anymore than artistic or emotional, there is a practical note in its ideal. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is not a humanly satisfying motive, though the idea often fills the horizon for an hour, or a day, a year, or a life-time, according to the nature of the man.
John Arthur Thomson
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What science knows it must know definitely; what it sees must be in focus.
John Arthur Thomson
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Quote of the day
Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.
Martin Luther
John Arthur Thomson
Born:
July 8, 1861
Died:
February 12, 1933
(aged 71)
Bio:
Sir John Arthur Thomson was a Scottish naturalist who authored several notable books and was an expert on soft corals.
Known for:
Outline of science (1910)
Outlines of zoology (1892)
Darwinism and human life (1909)
The science of life (1899)
Science, old and new (1924)
John Arthur Thomson on Wikipedia
John Arthur Thomson works on Gutenberg Project
John Arthur Thomson works on Wikisource
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