The dog has no ambition, no self-interest, no desire for vengeance, no fear other than that of displeasing. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon More Quotes by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon More Quotes From Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon The human mind cannot create anything. It produces nothing until having been fertilized by experience and meditation; its acquisitions are the germs of its production. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon experience meditation mind Let us investigate more closely this property common to animal and plant, this power of producing its likeness, this chain of successive existences of individuals, which constitutes the real existence of the species. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon real common animal To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon soul writing thinking I am convinced, by repeated observation, that marbles, lime-stones, chalks, marls, clays, sand, and almost all terrestrial substances, wherever situated, are full of shells and other spoils of the ocean. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon rocks ocean science We can only penetrate the rind of the earth. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon geology earth science To be and to think are one and the same for us. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon science thinking It appears that all that can be, is. The Creator's hand does not appear to have been opened in order to give existence to a certain determinate number of species, but it seems that it has thrown out all at once a world of relative and non-relative creatures, an infinity of harmonic and contrary combinations and a perpetuity of destructions and replacements. What idea of power is not given us by this spectacle! What feeling of respect for its Author is not inspired in us by this view of the universe! Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon nature views science As historians, we refuse to allow ourselves these vain speculations which turn on possibilities that, in order to be reduced to actuality, suppose an overturning of the Universe, in which our globe, like a speck of abandoned matter, escapes our vision and is no longer an object worthy of our regard. In order to fix our vision, it is necessary to take it such as it is, to observe well all parts of it, and by indications infer from the present to the past. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon order science past The style is the man himself. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon style he-man men All the work of the crystallographers serves only to demonstrate that there is only variety everywhere where they suppose uniformity ... that in nature there is nothing absolute, nothing perfectly regular. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon uniformity absolutes variety An Individual, whatever species it might be, is nothing in the Universe. A hundred, a thousand individuals are still nothing. The species are the only creatures of Nature, perpetual creatures, as old and as permanent as it. In order to judge it better, we no longer consider the species as a collection or as a series of similar individuals, but as a whole independent of number, independent of time, a whole always living, always the same, a whole which has been counted as one in the works of creation, and which, as a consequence, makes only a unity in Nature. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon independent nature science There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of definition. These definitions rest upon simple, but abstract, suppositions, and all truths in this category are only constructed, but abstract, consequences of these definitions ... Physical truths, to the contrary, are in no way arbitrary, and do not depend on us. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon simple truth order In general, the more one augments the number of divisions of the productions of nature, the more one approaches the truth, since in nature only individuals exist, while genera, orders, and classes only exist in our imagination. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon truth class order Style supposes the reunion and the exercise of all the intellectual faculties. The style is the man. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon intellectual exercise men The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object-Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes it. It also paints men, it aggrandizes them, it exaggerates them, it creates heroes and gods. History only depicts man, and paints him such as he is. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon nature hero philosophy Although the works of the Creator may be in themselves all equally perfect, the animal is, as I see it, the most complete work of nature, and man is her masterpiece. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon nature god science Man thinks, and at once becomes the master of the beings that do not think. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon masters men thinking
