Humphry Davy Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Humphry Davy quote about:
-
“Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown...”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there are no new worlds to conquer.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 delightful influences which the green leaves, the blue sky, the moonbeams and clouds of the evening diffuse over the universe, may in their powers of soul-healing, visit your day visions, is my desire and hope.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 the gross elements of matter - a spark of celestial fire, by which life is kindled and preserved, and which, if even the instruments it employs are indestructible in their essence, must itself, of necessity, be immortal.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 mistaken.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“We must reason in natural philosophy not from what we hope, or even expect, but from what we perceive.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“The well-mannered man never puts out his hand in greeting until a lady extends hers. This is a test of good breeding that is constantly applied. ... The first move in the direction of cordiality must come from the lady, the whole code of behaviour being based on the assumption that she is the social superior.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 the origin as well as the progress and improvement of civil society is founded in mechanical and chemical inventions.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Oh, most magnificent and noble Nature! Have I not worshipped thee with such a love As never mortal man before displayed? Adored thee in thy majesty of visible creation, And searched into thy hidden and mysterious ways As Poet, as Philosopher, as Sage?”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 important and peculiar of your advantages. It is not by foreign conquests chiefly that you are become great, but by a conquest of nature in your own country.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 different parts are connected, arranged, and employed, either for popular use, or for new speculative improvements.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 all the living chemists in France.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 upon the unknown processes of matter. It demands only an enquiring mind and senses alive to the facts almost everywhere presented in nature. And as it may be acquired without much difficulty, so it may be improved without much painful exertion.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“By science calmed, over the peaceful soul, Bright with eternal Wisdom's lucid ray, Peace, meek of eye, extends her soft control, And drives the puny Passions far away.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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, and is as much affected by outward causes.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“The ready apology covers a multitude of social sins.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“The ideal life is that which has few friends, but many acquaintances.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“What is politeness in the home but the outcome of affection and self-respect, and the suppression of all those natural instincts of self-seeking that, allowed their way, produce the worst manners in the world?”
-- Humphry Davy -
“I suppose there was never yet a woman who had not somewhere set up on a pedestal in her brain an ideal of manhood. ... He never is finished till the brain of his creator ceases to work, till she has added her last touch to him, and has laid down the burden of life and gone elsewhere, perhaps to some happy land where ideals are more frequently realised than ever happens here.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“It must always be borne in mind that the assumption of woman's social superiority lies at the root of these rules of conduct.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Cuvier had even in his address & manner the character of a superior Man, much general power & eloquence in conversation & great variety of information on scientific as well as popular subjects. I should say of him that he is the most distinguished man of talents I have ever known on the continent: but I doubt if He be entitled to the appellation of a Man of Genius.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument. The native intellectual powers of men in different times are not so much the causes of the different success of their labours, as the peculiar nature of the means and artificial resources in their possession.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“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 of the eagle in my character to make a direct flight to the loftiest altitudes in the social world; and I certainly never endeavored to reach those heights by using the creeping powers of the reptile, who in ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because it is the easiest.”
-- Humphry Davy -
“I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.”
-- Humphry Davy
You may also like:
-
Andre-Marie Ampere
Physicist -
Antoine Lavoisier
Chemist -
Benjamin Thompson
Physicist -
Carl Wilhelm Scheele
Chemist -
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
Physicist -
Dmitri Mendeleev
Chemist -
Elihu Thomson
Electrical engineer -
George Stephenson
Civil engineer -
James Clerk Maxwell
Physicist -
John Dalton
Chemist -
Jons Jacob Berzelius
Chemist -
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
Chemist -
Joseph Priestley
Philosopher -
Lord Kelvin
Physicist -
Michael Faraday
Scientist -
Robert Boyle
Philosopher -
Samuel Morse
Painter -
Thomas A. Edison
Inventor -
William Gilbert
Physician -
Alessandro Volta
Physicist