Joseph Banks Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

Mr. Humphry Davy is a lively and talented man, and a thorough chemist; but if I might venture to give an opinion...he is rather too lively to fill the Chair of the Royal Society with that degree of gravity it is most becoming to assume.

Joseph Banks
[General literacy would] teach [the poor] to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture, and other laborious employment to which their rank in society has destined them;... it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books, and publications against Christianity; it would render them insolent.

Joseph Banks
Who knows but that England may revive in New South Wales when it has sunk in Europe.

Joseph Banks
I was awaked by the singing of the birds ashore…Their voices were certainly the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable.
Off the coast of New Zealand

Joseph Banks
The treasures of the heavens are well known to be inexhaustible...

Joseph Banks
Some of our astronomers here incline to the opinion that it is a planet and not a comet; if you are of that opinion it should forthwith be provided with a name [or] our nimble neighbors, the French, will certainly save us the trouble of Baptizing it.

Joseph Banks
Who can say but your new Star [Uranus], which exceeds Saturn so much in its distance from the Sun, may exceed him as much in magnificence of attendance? Who knows what new rings, new satellites, or what other nameless and numberless phenomena remain behind, waiting to reward future industry and improvement?

Joseph Banks