Natural Philosopher Quotes

Christiaan Huygens

Robert Hooke

Robert Boyle

Henry Cavendish

William Gilbert

John Theophilus Desaguliers

William Molyneux

A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed...if there is any part of the phlogisticated air [nitrogen] of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole.

Henry Cavendish

But indeed all the whole story of Comets and Planets, and the Production of the World, is founded upon such poor and trifling grounds, that I have often wonder'd how an ingenious man could spend all that pains in making such fancies hang together.

Christiaan Huygens

When the study of the household (ecology) and the management of the household (economics) can be merged, and when ethics can be extended to include environmental as well as human values, then we can be optimistic about the future of humankind. Accordingly, bringing together these three 'E's' is the ultimate holism and the great challenge for our future.

Nature compell'd, his piercing Mind obeys, And gladly shows him all her secret Ways; 'Gainst Mathematicks she has no Defence, And yields t' experimental Consequence.

John Theophilus Desaguliers

The least of Reptiles I have hitherto met with, is a Mite.

Arithmetic and geometry, those wings on which the astronomer soars as high as heaven.

Men are deplorably ignorant with respect to natural things, an modern philosophers, as though dreaming in the darkness, must be aroused and taught the uses of things, the dealing with things; they must be made to quit the sort of learning that comes only from books, and that rests only on vain arguments from probability and upon conjecture.

William Gilbert

True and native beauty consists in the just composure and symmetry of the parts of the body.

Were there no other use of Optics, than the invention of "Spectacles" for the help of defective Eyes, I should think the advantage which mankind receives, thereby, inferior to no other benefit, whatever, not absolutely requisite to support Life.

William Molyneux