Joseph Priestley Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

Every man, when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, and to feel his own importance, will consider himself as fully equal to any other person whatever.

Joseph Priestley
Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process.

Joseph Priestley
What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

Joseph Priestley
Such supreme joy and satisfaction makes all other pleasures appear as pale sensations and compensates the scientist for the hard, constant, analytical work, like childbirth labor involved in achieving a new truth.

Joseph Priestley
If any person, discouraged by these difficulties, should think to relieve himself by rejecting all religion, natural and revealed, he will find, if he reflect at all, that he has miserably deceived himself, and that he is involved in greater perplexity than ever; the scheme he has adopted not only filling his mind with great darkness and distress, but being contrary to some of the plainest appearances in nature, and therefore manifestly irrational and absurd.

Joseph Priestley
It may, perhaps, be true, though we cannot distinctly see it to be so, that as all finite things require a cause, infinites admit of none.

Joseph Priestley
Contemporary with Vitellio and Peccam was... Roger Bacon, a man of almost universal genius, and who wrote on almost every branch of science. He frequently quotes Alhazen on the subject of optics, and seems to have carefully studied his writings, as well as those of other Arabians, which were the fountains of natural knowledge in those days, and which had been introduced into Europe by means of the Moors in Spain. Notwithstanding the pains this great man took with the subject of opticks, it does not appear that, with respect to theory, he made any considerable advance upon what Alhazen had done before him.

Joseph Priestley
It is the earnest wish of my heart, that your minds may be well established in the sound principles of religious knowledge, because I am fully persuaded, that nothing else can be a sufficient foundation of a virtuous and truly respectable conduct in life, or of good hope in death. A mind destitute of knowledge (and, comparatively speaking, no kind of knowledge, besides that of religion, deserves the name) is like a field on which no culture has been bestowed, which, the richer it is, the ranker weeds it will produce, If nothing good be sown in it, it will be dccupied by plants that are useless or noxious.

Joseph Priestley
Most of the early Christian writers thought the text "I and my Father are one," was to be understood of an unity or harmony of disposition only. Thus Tertullian observes, that the expression is unum, one thing, not one person; and he explains it to mean unity, likeness, conjunction, and of the love that the Father bore to the Son. Origen says, "let him consider that text, 'all that believed were of one heart and of one soul,' and then he will understand this, 'I and my Father are one.'"

Joseph Priestley
I married a daughter of Mr. Isaac Wilkinson, an ironmaster, near Wrexham, in Wales, with whose family I had become acquainted, in consequence of having the youngest son, William, at my school at Nantwich. This proved a very suitable and happy connexion, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others, and little for herself. Also, greatly excelling in every thing relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to the prosecution of my studies, and the other duties of my station.

Joseph Priestley
It is known to all persons who are conversant in experimental philosophy, that there are many little attentions and precautions necessary to be observed in the conducting of experiments, which cannot well be described in words, but which it is needless to describe, since practice will necessarily suggest them; though, like all other arts in which the hands and fingers are made use of, it is only much practice that can enable a person to go through complex experiments, of this or any kind, with ease and readiness.

Joseph Priestley
[The doctrine of air] I was led into in consequence of inhabiting a house adjoining to a public brewery, where I at first amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air [carbon dioxide] which I found ready made in the process of fermentation. When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making the fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind.

Joseph Priestley
Respect a parliamentary king, and chearfully pay all parliamentary taxes; but have nothing to do with a parliamentary religion, or a parliamentary God.
Religious rights, and religious liberty, are things of inestimable value. For these have many of our ancestors suffered and died; and shall we, in the sunshine of prosperity, desert that glorious cause, from which no storms of adversity or persecution could make them swerve? Let us consider if as a duty of the first rank with respect to moral obligation, to transmit to our posterity, and provide, as far as we can, for transmitting, unimpaired, to the latest generations, that generous zeal for religion and liberty, which makes the memory of our forefathers so truly illustrious.

Joseph Priestley
It pleased God to make one nation the medium of all His communications with mankind: This the nation of the Jews has done to a considerable degree in all ages As civilization extended, they by one means or another became most wonderfully dispersed through all countries; and at this day they are almost literally everywhere, the most conspicuous, and in the eye of reason and religion, the most respectable nation on the face of the earth.

Joseph Priestley
From Natural Philosophy have flowed all those great inventions by means of which mankind in general is able to subsist with more ease, and in greater numbers upon the face of the earth. Hence arise the capital advantages of men above brutes, and of civilization above barbarity.

Joseph Priestley
The friends of genuine, and I will add of rational Christianity, have not,... on the whole, much reason to regret that their enemies have not made these distinctions; since by this means, we have been taught to make them ourselves; so that Christianity is perhaps as much indebted to its enemies, as to its friends, for this important service. In their indiscriminate attacks, whatever has been found to be untenable has been gradually abandoned, and I hope the attack will be continued till nothing of the wretched outworks be left; and then, I doubt not, a safe and impregnable fortress, will be sound in the center, a fortress built upon a rock, against which the gates of death will not prevail.

Joseph Priestley
If the progress continues the same in another period, of equal length, what a glorious science shall we see unfold, what a fund of entertainment is there in store for us, and what important benefits must derive mankind.

Joseph Priestley
I can only repeat that it is not my opinions on which I would be understood to lay any stress. Let the new facts, from which I deduce them, be considered as my discoveries, and let other persons draw better inferences from them if they can.

Joseph Priestley
The history of science cannot but animate us in our attempts to advance still further, and suggest methods and experiments to assist us in our future progress.

Joseph Priestley
It sometimes happens to men whose genius far transcends the level of their day, to be from that very circumstance neither understood nor believed by their contemporaries.

Joseph Priestley
A successful pursuit of science makes a man the benefactor of all mankind and of every age.

Joseph Priestley
More is owing to what we call chance... than to any proper design or preconceived theory in this business.

Joseph Priestley
The greater is the circle of light, the greater is the boundary of the darkness by which it is confined.

Joseph Priestley
One of the most intimate of all associations in the human mind is that of cause and effect. They suggest one another with the utmost readiness upon all occasions; so that it is almost impossible to contemplate the one, without having some idea of, or forming some conjecture about the other.

Joseph Priestley
It may be my fate to be a kind of comet, or flaming meteor in science, in the regions of which (like enough to a meteor) I made my appearance very lately, and very unexpectedly; and therefore, like a meteor, it may be my destiny to move very swiftly, burn away with great heat and violence and become as suddenly extinct.

Joseph Priestley
Learning and talents, have ever commanded the respect and the admiration of mankind. In the dawn of science, indeed, the inventors of the useful arts were deified by those to whom they became benefactors by their discoveries; and the skilful in agriculture, were considered as super-human.

Joseph Priestley
I view with rapture the glorious face of nature, and I admire its wonderful constitution, the laws of which are daily unfolding themselves to our view.

Joseph Priestley
In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

Joseph Priestley
We, who only learn from history that crucifixion was a kind of death to which slaves and the vilest of malefactors were exposed, can but very imperfectly enter into their prejudices, so as to feel what they must have done with respect to it.

Joseph Priestley
The mind of man will never be able to contemplate the being, perfections, and providence of God without meeting with inexplicable difficulties. We may find sufficient reason for acquiescing in the darkness which involves these great subjects, but we must never expect to see them set in a perfectly clear light. But notwithstanding this, we may know enough of the divine being, and of his moral government, to make us much better and happier beings than we could be without such knowledge; and even the consideration of the insuperable difficulties referred to above is not without its use, as it tends to impress the mind with sentiments of reverence, humility, and submission.

Joseph Priestley