10 December 2019

François Arago - Collected Quotes

"To get to know, to discover, to publish - this is the destiny of a scientist." (François Arago, "De L’Utiliteé des Pensions", 1855)

"In the experimental sciences, the epochs of the most brilliant progress are almost always separated by long intervals of almost absolute repose." (François Arago, "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men", ['Joseph Fourier'] 1859)

"Let us award a just, a brilliant homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of uniting them into sheaves!" (François Arago, "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men", ['Joseph Fourier'] 1859)

"The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist, and the statesman." (François Arago, "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men", [Eulogy on Laplace] 1859)

"Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may most justly boast. It owes this indisputable pre-eminence to the elevated nature of its object, to the grandeur of its means of investigation, to the certainty, the utility, and the unparalleled magnificence of its results." (François Arago, "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men", [Eulogy on Laplace] 1859)

"The mathematics have always been the implacable enemies of scientific romances." (François Arago, "Oeuvres", 1866)

 "On certain occasions, the eyes of the mind can supply the want of the most powerful telescopes, and lead to astronomical discoveries of the highest importance." (François Arago)

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