Mere Quotes

1764 quotes by 1160 authors

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt… — Edmund Burke
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. — Abraham Lincoln
If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point… — Abraham Lincoln
Chemistry is yet, indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem contradictory; their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and… — Thomas Jefferson
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions… — Charles Darwin
Considered as a mere question of physics, (and keeping all moral considerations entirely out of sight,) the appearance of man is a geological phenomenon of… — Adam Sedgwick
A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought… — John Henry Newman
It seems to me, that the only Objects of the abstract Sciences or of Demonstration is Quantity and Number, and that all Attempts to extend… — David Hume
No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions,… — Francis Bacon
The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better, whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and… — Thomas Paine
Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its… — Thomas Aquinas
A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. — Tobias Smollett
Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, on… — Thomas Carlyle
It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. — Charles Darwin
The vortex theory [of the atom] is only a dream. Itself unproven, it can prove nothing, and any speculations founded upon it are mere dreams… — Lord Kelvin
Mere numbers cannot bring out ... the intimate essence of the experiment. This conviction comes naturally when one watches a subject at work. ... What… — Alfred Binet
Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity. — Charles Darwin
Unless our laboratory results are to give us artificialities, mere scientific curiosities, they must be subjected to interpretation by gradual re-approximation to conditions of life. — John Dewey
It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. — Henry David Thoreau
The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive… — John William Draper

Who Wrote These Mere Quotes

1,160 authors contributed a total of 1,764 Mere Quotes, led by these top contributors: