Quote

Lay aside all conceit Learn to read the book of Nature for yourself. Those who have succeeded best have followed for years some slim thread which once in a while has broadened out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search.

Louis Agassiz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Louis Agassiz
Age: 66 †
Born: 1807
Born: May 28
Died: 1873
Died: December 14
Biologist
Botanist
Climatologist
Geologist
Glaciologist
Ichthyologist
Naturalist
Paleontologist
Pathologist
Philosopher
Physician
Motiers
Agassiz
Jean Louis Rudolph Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz
Best
Treasure
Disclosed
Book
Lays
Slim
Long
Worth
Conceit
Years
Read
Succeeded
Life
Success
Thread
Learn
Followed
Science
Aside
Nature
Search
Broadened

More quotes by Louis Agassiz

Image
But unless some great revolution in nature modifies the present relative level between land and sea, it may safely be maintained that the present outer reef is the final southern boundary of the North American continent.
Louis Agassiz
Image
In-depth studies have an influence on general ideas, whereas theories, in turn, in order to maintain themselves, push their spectators to search for new evidence. The mind's activity that is maintained by the debates about these works, is probably the source of the greatest joys given to man to experience on Earth.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The world is the geologist's great puzzle-box he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and sees where they fit, and then his fragments grow at once into a connected picture beneath his hand.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being endowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man.
Louis Agassiz
Image
One naturally asks, what was the use of this great engine set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God's great plough.
Louis Agassiz
Image
I may say that here, as in most cases where the operations of nature interfere with the designs of man, it is not by a direct intervention on our part that we may remedy the difficulties, but rather by a precise knowledge of their causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences.
Louis Agassiz
Image
Facts are the words of God, and we may heap them together endlessly, but they will teach us little or nothing till we place them in their true relations, and recognize the thought that binds them together.
Louis Agassiz
Image
Select such subjects that your pupils cannot walk out without seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them provided with the specimens about which you speak. If you can find nothing better, take a house-fly or a cricket, and let each one hold a specimen and examine it as you talk.
Louis Agassiz
Image
I will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God-a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of human knowledge-adds a wonderful stimulus to the man who attempts to penetrate into the regions of the unknown.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind.
Louis Agassiz
Image
Nature brings us back to absolute truth whenever we wander.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The office of science is not to record possibilities but to ascertain what nature does ... As far as Darwinism deals with mere arguments of possibilities or even probabilities, without a basis of fact, it departs from the true scientific method and injures science, as most of the devotees of the new ism have already done.
Louis Agassiz
Image
In Europe I have been accused of taking my scientific ideas from the Church. In America I have been called a heretic, because I will not let my church-going friends pat me on the head.
Louis Agassiz
Image
I now never make the preparations for penetrating into some small province of nature hitherto undiscovered without breathing a prayer to the Being who hides His secrets from me only to allure me graciously on to the unfolding of them.
Louis Agassiz
Image
It is the job of prophets and scientists alike to proclaim the glories of God.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant that there is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realise.
Louis Agassiz
Image
Philosophers and theologians have yet to learn that a physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle. Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance.
Louis Agassiz
Image
The surface of the earth is not simply a stage on which the thousands of present and past inhabitants played their parts in turn. There are much more intimate relations between the earth and the living organisms which populated it, and it may even be demonstrated that the earth was developed because of them.
Louis Agassiz
Image
A man cannot be professor of zoölogy on one day and of chemistry on the next, and do good work in both. As in a concert all are musicians,-one plays one instrument, and one another, but none all in perfection.
Louis Agassiz
Image
A smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.
Louis Agassiz