Jean L R Agassiz - Collected Quotes

"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 [nature’s] causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Annual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of that Work During the Year Ending November", 1851)

"As long as men inquire, they will find opportunities to know more upon these topics than those who have gone before them, so inexhaustibly rich is nature in the innermost diversity of her treasures of beauty, order, and intelligence." (Jean L R Agassiz, “Essay on Classification”, 1859)

"Are our systems the inventions of naturalists, or only their reading of the Book of Nature? and can that book have more than one reading? If these classifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attempt to classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then they are thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed in Nature, - then Nature is the work of thought, the production of intelligence carried out according to plan, therefore premeditated, - and in our study of natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the Creator, reading His conceptions, interpreting a system that is His and not ours." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Methods of Study in Natural History", 1863)

"[...] it must be for truth’s sake, and not even for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, that the scientific man studies Nature." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Methods of Study in Natural History", 1863)

"The education of a naturalist now consists chiefly in learning how to compare." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Methods of Study in Natural History", 1863)

"[...] the time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world; for we have reached the point where the results of science touch the very problem of existence, and all men listen for the solving of that mystery." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Methods of Study in Natural History", 1863)

"Philosophers and theologians have yet to learn that a physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle." (Jean L R Agassiz, "Evolution and Permanence of Type", The Atlantic Monthly, 1874)

"Facts are stupid things until brought into connection with some general law." (Jean L R Agassiz)

"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 has once in a while broadened out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search." (Jean L R Agassiz)

"The only true scientific system must be one in which the thought, the intellectual structure, rises out of, and is based upon, facts." (Jean L R Agassiz)

"The study of nature is an intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with nature. At the lowest her works are the works of the highest powers - the highest something, in whatever way we may look at it." (Jean L R Agassiz)