John Herschel Professions : Baronet Herschel Born : March 7, 1792 Died : May 11, 1871 Browse All Authors Top 31 quotes by John Herschel The end of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century are remarkable for the small amount of scientific movement going on in this country, especially in its more exact departments. Mathematics were at the last gasp, and astronomy nearly so; I mean in those members of its frame which depend upon precise measurement and systematic calculation. The chilling torpor of routine had begun to spread itself over all those branches of Science which wanted the excitement of experimental research. John Herschel science mean country No doubt the testimony of natural reason, on whatever exercised, must, of necessity, stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make known; still it places the existence and personal attributes of the Deity on such grounds as to render doubts absurd and atheism ridiculous. John Herschel deities atheism doubt ...Nature builds up her refined and invisible architecture, with a delicacy eluding our conception, yet with a symmetry and beauty which we are never weary of admiring. John Herschel delicacy architecture nature The besetting evil of our age is the temptation to squander and dilute thought on a thousand different lines of inquiry. John Herschel temptation age evil Self-respect,--the corner-stone of all virtue. John Herschel virtue self stones Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design. John Herschel eye men order God knows how ardently I wish I had ten lives. John Herschel god-knows know-how wish According to this view of the matter, there is nothing casual in the formation of Metamorphic Rocks. All strata, once buried deep enough, (and due TIME allowed!!!) must assume that state,-none can escape. All records of former worlds must ultimately perish. John Herschel rocks views science Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy. John Herschel astronomy treats next Johann Wolfgang von Goethe John Herschel respect Accustomed to trace the operation of general causes, and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, [the scientist and natural philosopher] walks in the midst of wonders. John Herschel eye law thinking