John Herschel[When nature appears complicated:] The moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part of its plan, w… ▶361ReflectionThoughtTime
John HerschelTo the natural philosopher, there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons. ✨ Sir John Frederick Will… ▶374Philosophy
John HerschelThe 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 mor… ▶355Reading
John HerschelMusic and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes, that a taste for them, for their own s… ▶333Thought
John HerschelAccording 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 tha… ▶301PoliticsTime
John HerschelThe stars are the land-marks of the universe. ✨ John Herschel (2014). Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, p.469, Cambridge University Press378Humor
John HerschelMan 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 desig… ▶337PhilosophyReadingReflection
John HerschelSelf-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue. ✨ A Toolbox for Humanity: More Than 9000 Years of Thought. Book by Lloyd Albert Johnson, 2003.282HumanityReadingThought
John HerschelThe novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented. ✨ John Herschel (2014). Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Revi… ▶284HumanityPoliticsReading
John HerschelWere I to pray for a taste which should stand me in good stead under every variety of circumstances and be a source of happiness and a cheerfulness to me during life and a shield … ▶308LifeReading
John HerschelJohann Wolfgang von Goethe278Humor
John Herschel...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. ✨ Si… ▶2810Philosophy
John HerschelSpeculations apparently the most unprofitable have almost invariably been those from which the greatest practical applications have emanated. ✨ Sir John Frederick William He… ▶229Philosophy
John HerschelEvery student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn. 131Life
John HerschelAll human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths come from on high, and contained in the sacred writings.143HumanityTruth
John HerschelThe barrier has begun to yield. ✨ John Herschel (2014). Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, p.550, Cambridge University Press133Sadness
John HerschelIt can hardly be pressed forcibly enough on the attention of the student of nature, that there is scarcely any natural phenomenon which can be fully and completely explained, in a… ▶159Philosophy
John HerschelAlmost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena, of a qualitative or numerical kind, of such portions of the n… ▶1510Humor
