Charles LyellGeology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it enquires into the causes of these change… ▶371Life
Charles LyellIn the course of this short tour, I became convinced that we must turn to the New World if we wish to see in perfection the oldest monuments of the earth's history, so far at leas… ▶371Politics
Charles LyellWhen on my return to England I showed the cast of the cranium to Professor Huxley, he remarked at once that it was the most ape-like skull he had ever beheld. ✨ Charles Lyel… ▶363Hope
Charles LyellThere is no foundation in geological facts, for the popular theory of the successive development of the animal and vegetable world, from the simplest to the most perfect forms. 377Truth
Charles LyellIn the shallow parts of many Swiss lakes, where there is a depth of no more than from 5 to 15 feet of water, ancient wooden piles are observed at the bottom sometimes worn down to… ▶346Time
Charles Lyell'Time's noblest offspring is the last.' This line of Bishop Berkeley's expresses the real cause of the belief in progress in the animal creation.324Time
Charles LyellNever was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than the assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing ca… ▶302Truth
Charles LyellSo far from having a materialistic tendency, the supposed introduction into the earth at successive geological periods of life,-sensation,-instinct,-the intelligence of the higher… ▶358LifeThoughtTime
Charles LyellWhen the aggregate amount of solid matter transported by rivers in a given number of centuries from a large continent, shall be reduced to arithmetical computation, the result wil… ▶349Reflection
Charles LyellThe earth's becoming at a particular period the residence of human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the physical world, that our study and contemplation of the earth, and t… ▶251DeathHumanityPhilosophy
Charles LyellNotwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to regard them as… ▶262HopeTime
Charles LyellMan, whose organization is regarded as the highest, departs from the vertebrate archetype; and it is because the study of anatomy is usually commenced from, and often confined to,… ▶328Philosophy
Charles LyellThe question now at issue, whether the living species are connected with the extinct by a common bond of descent, will best be cleared up by devoting ourselves to the study of the… ▶328LifePoliticsTime
Charles LyellNo tools have yet been met with in any of the gravels occurring at the higher levels of the valley of the Seine; but no importance can be attached to this negative fact, as so lit… ▶253Truth
Charles LyellMillions of our race are now supported by lands situated where deep seas once prevailed in earlier ages. In many districts not yet occupied by man, land animals and forests now ab… ▶253Love
Charles LyellSuch discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man. ✨ Charles… ▶309Reflection
Charles LyellThat ere long, now that curiosity has been so much excited on this subject, some human remains will be detected in the older alluvium of European valleys, I confidently expect. 265Humanity
Charles LyellHitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of… ▶288Reflection
Charles LyellThe ordinary naturalist is not sufficiently aware that when dogmatizing on what species are, he is grappling with the whole question of the organic world & its connection with the… ▶277Time
Charles LyellEach species may have had its origin in a single pair, or individual, where an individual was sufficient, and species may have been created in succession at such times and in such… ▶267ReflectionTime
Charles LyellAmidst the vicissitudes of the earth's surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them. There is no possibility of… ▶245DeathReflection
Charles LyellI long ago suggested the hypothesis, that in the basin of the Thames there are indications of a meeting in the Pleistocene period of a northern and southern fauna. ✨ Charles… ▶2710Sadness
Charles LyellGeology differs as widely from cosmogony, as speculations concerning the creation of man differ from history. ✨ Sir Charles Lyell, Gérard Paul Deshayes (1830). Principles of… ▶227Time
Charles LyellIt must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first a… ▶227Politics
Charles LyellNever call an accountant a credit to his profession; a good accountant is a debit to his profession.228Time
Charles LyellThe present is the key to the past ✨ Charles Lyell (2005). The Geological Evidence of Man, p.8, Cosimo, Inc.2010Time
Charles LyellI may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' th… ▶189HumanityTruth
Charles Lyell[My Book] will endeavour to establish the principle[s] of reasoning in ... [geology]; and all my geology will come in as illustration of my views of those principles, and as evide… ▶134ReadingReflectionTime
Charles LyellIt has long been a fact familiar to geologists, that, both on the east and west coasts of the central part of Scotland, there are lines of raised beaches, containing marine shells… ▶148Truth
