Geologist

Charles Darwin

Science

1758–1778

"My object in this chapter is solely to shew that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties."

John Muir

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer."

🇺🇸James Dwight Dana

Science

1813–1895

"The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word."

🇺🇸Louis Agassiz

Science

1807–1873

"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."

🇬🇧Douglas Mawson

Science

1882–1958

"If we ignore the facts contained in one part of the world, surely we are hampering scientific advance."

"Writing should generate ideas into matter, and not the other way around."

🇫🇷Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Religion

1881–1955

"In the spiritual life, as in all organic processes, everyone has their optimum and it is just as harmful to go beyond it as not to attain it."

Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff

Science

1852–1911

"A famous name has this peculiarity that it becomes gradually smaller especially in natural sciences where each succeeding discovery invariably overshadows what precedes."

🇺🇸Lydia Maria Child

Social Activism

1802–1880

"The United States is...a warning rather than an example to the world."

🇺🇸Charles R. Van Hise

Science

1857–1918

"I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every family of the state."

🇺🇸John Muir (indologist)

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"“Only that man... who is deluded, who is desirous of acquiring profits, who has neither deliberated upon his own religion, nor looked at the defects in Christianity, would become a Christian."

🇸🇪Carl Linnaeus

Science

1707–1778

"The principle being accepted that all Species of one Genus have arisen from one mother through different fathers, it must be assumed"

🇺🇸Henry Fairfield Osborn

Science

1857–1935

"This chain of human ancestors was totally unknown to Darwin. He could not have even dreamed of such a flood of proof and truth."

🇫🇷Tzvetan Todorov

Literature

1939–2017

"Tzvetan Todorov on the Enlightenment Today, a nineteen-minute interview on Philosophy Bites"

🇬🇧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"..."

"Landscapes are about beauty and death. The only way you can define beauty.. ..is to know that death is hiding behind it. This is what haunts you when you’re doing a so-called landscape painting."

Reinout Willem van Bemmelen

Science

1904–1983

"The subjective element in geological studies accounts for two characteristic types that can be distinguished among geologists. One considering geology as a creative art, the other regarding geology as an exact science."

🇩🇪Gottfried Leibniz

Mathematics

rationalism

1646–1716

"G. W. Leibniz Texts and Translations, Donald Rutherford, U California, San Diego"

🇬🇧William Buckland

Science

1784–1856

"I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king."

"The Sheltering Desert by Henno Martin on archive.org"

Miho Mosulishvili

Literature

post-postmodernism

b. 1962

"Everything started by a word and a word will end it all."

"The climate stubbornly refuses to co-operate with computer models and the writers of alarmist popular articles and books."

"Scientists are not known for the graces of courtesy and tact when commenting on the work of others."

"The professor was lost in thought. He was disturbed and worried, but proud that he was behaving like a true scientist: he wasn’t losing his head, or panicking, or believing in miracles."

🇩🇪Alexander von Humboldt

Philosophy

1767–1835

"Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things."

🇫🇷Georges Cuvier

Science

1769–1832

"The works which this man leaves behind him occupy a few pages only; their importance is not greatly superior to their extent."

Cargill Gilston Knott

Mathematics

1856–1922

"What may appear as a towering peak to one may seem but an ordinary eminence to another."

🇺🇸Claudia Alexander

Science

1959–2015

"There's a deep thirst and hunger to know more about space, literally because of the Star Trek phenomenon."

🇺🇸Clair Cameron Patterson

Science

1922–1995

"I would get up and explain how things really work. That was my job."

🇺🇸Orrin H. Pilkey

Science

1934–2024

"The objectivity of the IPCC documents is laudable. But the fact that the group recognizes its model weaknesses and is trying to improve them doesn't make its conclusions stronger or more believable. ."