I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually,… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed be a civil war of… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
This sentiment of self-contempt is a frequent one in young people of both sexes. Their valuation of themselves varies as much as the barometer,… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
Consistency in opinion is the slow poison of intellectual life, the destroyer of its vividness and energy. — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blessed, I should imagine it by the orange-grove in… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
The beginning of civilisation is the discovery of some useful arts, by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives superiority to particular nations ... to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and ultimately adopt their manners;- so that in reality… — Humphry Davy Copy Share
Natural science is founded on minute critical views of the general order of events taking place upon our globe, corrected, enlarged, or exalted by experiments, in which the agents concerned are placed under new circumstances, and their diversified properties separately examined. The body of natural science, then, consists of facts; is analogy,-the relation of resemblance of facts by which its… — Humphry Davy Copy Share
The three states of the caterpillar, larva, and butterfly have, since the time of the Greek poets, been applied to typify the human being,--its… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
James Watt was equally distinguished as a natural philosopher and chemist; his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic… — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures. — Humphry Davy Copy Share Image
