Only those works which are well-written will pass to posterity: the amount of knowledge, the uniqueness of the facts, even the novelty of the discoveries are no guarantees of immortality ... These things are exterior to a man but style… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
For the little that one has reflected on the origin of our knowledge, it is easy to perceive that we can acquire it only by means of comparison. That which is absolutely incomparable is wholly incomprehensible. God is the only… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
The discoveries that one can make with the microscope amount to very little, for one sees with the mind's eye and without the microscope… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
In general, the more one augments the number of divisions of the productions of nature, the more one approaches the truth, since in nature… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
Style supposes the reunion and the exercise of all the intellectual faculties. The style is the man. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
Let us investigate more closely this property common to animal and plant, this power of producing its likeness, this chain of successive existences of… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
The dog has no ambition, no self-interest, no desire for vengeance, no fear other than that of displeasing. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
The human mind cannot create anything. It produces nothing until having been fertilized by experience and meditation; its acquisitions are the germs of its… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
Although the works of the Creator may be in themselves all equally perfect, the animal is, as I see it, the most complete work… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
An Individual, whatever species it might be, is nothing in the Universe. A hundred, a thousand individuals are still nothing. The species are the… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
To be and to think are one and the same for us. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image
The greatest marvel is not in the individual. It is in the succession, in the renewal and in the duration of the species that… — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Copy Share Image