Humphry Davy Quotes

31 quotes in 758 categories

• But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed be a civil war of the…
• I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.
• To me there never has been a higher source of honour or distinction than that connected with advances in science. I have not possessed enough…
• Gay-Lussac was quick, lively, ingenious and profound, with great activity of mind and great facility of manipulation. I should place him at the head of…
• Geology, perhaps more than any other department of natural philosophy, is a science of contemplation. It requires no experience or complicated apparatus, no minute processes…
• Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument.
• Every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater…
• 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,…
• The progression of physical science is much more connected with your prosperity than is usually imagined. You owe to experimental philosophy some of the most…
• 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…
• Nature is beautiful, and you are in her bosom. That voice of comfort which speaks in the breezes of morning, may visit your mind, that…
• The whole language of nature informs us, that in animated beings there is something above our powers of investigation; something which employs, combines, and arranges…
• Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no…
• Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.
• Experimental science hardly ever affords us more than approximations to the truth; and whenever many agents are concerned we are in great danger of being…
• We must reason in natural philosophy not from what we hope, or even expect, but from what we perceive.
• In the present state of our knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to speculate on the remote cause of the electrical energy... its relation…
• The art galleries of Paris contain the finest collection of frames I ever saw.
• When two elements combine and form more than one compound, the masses of one element that react with a fixed mass of the other are…
• 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…

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