John Herschel Quotes

55 Sourced Quotes

The probable error of the whole (0.0032) shews that the mean specific gravity of this our planet is, in all human probability, quite as well determined as that of an ordinary hand-specimen in a mineralogical cabinet - a marvellous result, which should teach us to despair of nothing which lies within the compass of number, weight, and measure.

John Herschel
Everyone knows that a volcano is a mountain that vomits out fire, and smoke, and cinders, and melted lava, and sulphur, and steam, and gases, and all kinds of horrible things...

John Herschel
We stand on the verge of a vast cosmological discovery such as nothing hitherto imagined can compare with.

John Herschel
Familiar objects and events are far from presenting themselves to our senses in that aspect and with those connections under which science requires them to be viewed, and which constitute their rational explanation.

John Herschel
As truth is single, and consistent with itself, a principle may be as completely and as plainly elucidated by the most familiar and simple fact, as by the most imposing and uncommon phenomenon.

John Herschel
If proof were wanted of the inexhaustible fertility of astronomical science in points of novelty and interest, it would suffice to adduce the addition to the list of members of our system of no less than eight new planets and satellites during the preparation of these sheets for the press.

John Herschel
A clever man, shut up alone and allowed unlimited time, might reason out for himself all the truths of mathematics, by proceeding from those simple notions of space and number of which he cannot divest himself without ceasing to think.

John Herschel
There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of.

John Herschel
Natural History... is either the beginning or the end of physical science.

John Herschel
I know not how to describe it [the great nebula in the constellation of Orion] better than by comparing it with a curdling liquid, or a surface strewed over with flocks of wool, or to the breaking up of a mackerel sky,, when the clouds of which it consists begin to assume a cirrus appearance.

John Herschel
A philosophical theory does not shoot up like the tall and spiry pine in graceful and unencumbered natural growth, but, like a column built by men, ascends amid extraneous apparatus and shapeless masses of materials.

John Herschel
It is for the most part after thus passing the sun that they shine forth in all their splendor, and that their tails acquire their greatest length and development, thus indicating plainly the action of the sun's rays as the exciting cause of that extraordinary emanation.

John Herschel
By far the most wonderful and mysterious bodies of our system are the comets. Their number is immense, their variety of aspect infinite, their magnitude astounding.

John Herschel
If matter exists in the universe for the purpose of life, nature would seem to tip a hogshead to fill a wineglass, when it makes life possible only on a little planet.

John Herschel
[Precision] is the very soul of science; and its attainment afford the only criterion, or at least the best, of the truth of theories, and the correctness of experiments.

John Herschel
It happens that great masses of knowledge are daily perishing before our eyes without the possibility of recovery, because, in fact, our eyes are not open to them, and we have nothing to awaken our attention to their transient display.

John Herschel
Accustomed to trace the operation of general causes, and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, [the scientist and natural philosopher] walks in the midst of wonders.

John Herschel
Nature builds up by her refined and invisible architecture, with a delicacy eluding our conception, yet with a symmetry and beauty which we are never weary of admiring.

John Herschel
The colours which glitter on a soap-bubble are the immediate consequence of a principle the most important from the variety of phenomena it explains, and the most beautiful, from its simplicity and compendious neatness, in the whole science of optics.

John Herschel
Knowledge is not, like food, destroyed by use, but rather augmented and perfected.

John Herschel
As civilization extends, wants and desires of a higher order than material gratifications arise; and among them that of extending knowledge for the sake of knowing the craving after a larger grasp, a clearer insight, a more complete conception in all its relations of the wondrous universe of which we form a part.

John Herschel
Man is a speculative as well as a sentient being, searching in everything for connexion and harmony, the perception of which mixes itself with his choicest pleasures.

John Herschel
This remarkable belt [Milky Way] has maintained, from the earliest ages, the same relative situation among the stars; and, when examined through powerful telescope, is found (wonderful to relate!) to consist entirely of stars scattered by millions, like glittering dust, on the black ground of the general heavens.

John Herschel
The laws of nature are not only permanent, but consistent, intelligible, and discoverable with such a moderate degree of research, as is calculated rather to stimulate than to weary curiosity.

John Herschel
Science is of no party. Under the government, whether of Whig or Tory, she has often had to complain of the difficulty of making herself heard in recommendation of her objects; but those objects once recognized by a British government, are taken up in a spirit and with a liberality which ensures success, if success be possible.

John Herschel
[Precision] is the very soul of science; and its attainment afford the only criterion, or at least the best, of the truth of theories, and the correctness of experiments.

John Herschel
When we look through nature and observe the manifest indications of design which every point of it exhibits, it would be very presumptuous in us to assert that comets are of no use, and serve no purpose in our system.

John Herschel
If science may be vilified by representing it as opposed to religion, or trammeled by mistaken notions of the danger of free enquiry, there is yet another mode by which it may be degraded from its native dignity, and that is by placing it in the light of a mere appendage to and caterer for our pampered appetites.

John Herschel
According to this view of the matter, there is nothing casual in the formation of Metamorphic Rocks. All strata, once buried deep enough, (and due TIME allowed!!!) must assume that state,—none can escape. All records of former worlds must ultimately perish.

John Herschel
A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations.

John Herschel