Botanist

Charles Darwin

Science

1758–1778

"It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter. —"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Literature

Age of Enlightenment

1749–1832

"Only mankind Can do the impossible: He can distinguish, He chooses and judges, He can give permanence To the moment."

🇬🇧Charles Dickens

Literature

literary realism

1719–1793

"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be."

🇫🇷Louis Pasteur

Science

1904–1989

"S’il est terrifiant de penser que la vie puisse être à la merci de la multiplication de ces infiniment petits, il est consolant aussi d’espérer que la science ne restera pas toujours impuissante devant de tels ennemis."

Leonardo da Vinci

Mathematics

Renaissance

1452–1519

"3 miglia più in là si trova li edifici della vena del rame e dello argento, presso una terra detta Pra Santo Petro e vene di ferro e cose fantastiche. (Ancient Italian)"

John Muir

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"This natural beauty-hunger is made manifest … in our magnificent National Parks … Nature's sublime wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world."

🇿🇦Jan Smuts

Politics

1870–1950

"We do not want new orders. What the world wants is an old order of 2,000 years ago – the order of the man of Galilee."

"Dr. Alexander Skutch - Bibliographic notes from Tropical Science Center"

🇬🇧Beatrix Potter

Literature

1866–1943

"I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense..."

🇫🇷Pierre-Paul Grassé

Science

1895–1985

"The mutation of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect."

🇺🇸Hugh Iltis

Science

1925–2016

"The general biological ignorance bodes ill for democratic decisions on environmental issues."

Harry Johnston

Art

1858–1927

"It is the first rational exposition of the relations of mankind to the mystery which shrouds the how and wherefore of man's existence, the first honest protest against our long, long martyrdom."

🇬🇧James Nasmyth

Technology

1704–1779

"We may fill our purses, but we pay a heavy price for it in the loss of picturesqueness and beauty."

🇺🇸Edwin Grant Conklin

Science

1863–1952

"Life is not found in atoms or molecules or genes as such, but in organization; not in symbiosis but in synthesis."

🇺🇸John Muir (indologist)

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"“The materials in these still standard books never betray the author’s original purpose in amassing them: to demonstrate that Christianity is rationally superior to Hinduism."

🇸🇪Carl Linnaeus

Science

1707–1778

"The Earth's Creation is the glory of God, as seen from the works of Nature by Man alone."

🇬🇧Gertrude Jekyll

Art

1843–1932

"The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, but grows to the enduring happiness that the love of gardening gives."

🇺🇸William Beebe

Science

1877–1962

"The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is their whyness that makes life worth living."

🇬🇧Paul J. McAuley

Science

b. 1955

"Things are simply what they are, neither good nor bad. The potential for evil is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

🇺🇸John James Audubon

Science

Naturalism

1785–1851

"International celebration of Audubon through stamps"

Herbert Spencer

Philosophy

positivism

1820–1903

"Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror."

🏛️Theophrastus

Philosophy

peripatetic school

-370–-286

"Superstition would seem to be simply cowardice in regard to the supernatural."

🇺🇸Sylvia Earle

Science

b. 1935

"No ocean, no life. No blue, no green. No ocean, no us."

🇬🇧Gideon Mantell

Science

1790–1852

"Upon fixing my residence at Lewes, I resolved to devote my leisure moments to the investigation of the "Organic remains of a former world"..."

🇺🇸George Washington Carver

Technology

1864–1943

"The Life of George Washington Carver: In His Own Words, Eagle Forum University."

🇬🇧William Buckland

Science

1784–1856

"The taste of mole was the most repulsive I knew until I tasted a bluebottle ."

"“...from its name, Ramgar, I am inclined to support that it was a part of the building actually erected by Rama."

🇬🇧Charles Eliot (diplomat)

Politics

1862–1931

"In Buddha, says Sir Charles Eliot, “the world is not thought of as the handiwork of a divine personality, nor the moral law as his will. The fact that religion can exist without these ideas is of capital importance."

🇫🇷Jean-Henri Fabre

Science

Félibrige

1823–1915

"Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity."

🇺🇸Lynn Margulis

Science

1938–2011

"Not only did life originate on earth very early in its history as a planet, but for the first two billion years, Earth was inhabited solely by bacteria."

🇯🇵Masanobu Fukuoka

Philosophy

1913–2008

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

🇬🇧William Jones (philologist)

Mathematics

1746–1794

"Plato drew many of his notions from the sages of Hindustán."

Al-Biruni

Mathematics

973–1050

"A Persian by birth, Biruni produced his writings in Arabic, though he knew, besides Persian, no less than four other languages."

Adolphe Quetelet

Science

1796–1874

"I am less desirous to explain phenomena than to establish their existence."

🇬🇧David Brewster

Science

1781–1868

"Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon."