Louis AgassizYou cannot do without one specialty. You must have some base-line to measure the work and attainments of others. For a general view of the subject, study the history of the scienc… ▶371Time
Louis AgassizIn 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Mass., before a Teachers' Institute conducted by Horace Mann. My subject was grasshoppers. I passed around a large jar of these insects, and m… ▶352HumorTimeTruth
Louis AgassizSelect such subjects that your pupils cannot walk out without seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them provided with the specimens about which you speak. If y… ▶321Reading
Louis AgassizThe world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far mere… ▶332LifePoliticsTime
Louis AgassizIn-depth studies have an influence on general ideas, whereas theories, in turn, in order to maintain themselves, push their spectators to search for new evidence. The mind's activ… ▶376DeathLifeThought
Louis AgassizA laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where nothing profane should be tolerated. I feel less agony at improprieties in churches than in a scientific laboratory. ✨ D… ▶302Reading
Louis AgassizAs long as men inquire, they will find opportunities to know more upon these topics than those who have gone before them, so inexhaustibly rich is nature in the innermost diversit… ▶348Politics
Louis AgassizIt must be for truth's sake, and not for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, that the scientific man studies Nature. The application of science to the useful arts requires oth… ▶282DeathHumanityLife
Louis AgassizToday our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encour… ▶338HumanityReflectionThought
Louis AgassizThe world is the geologist's great puzzle-box; he stands before it like the child to whom the separate pieces of his puzzle remain a mystery till he detects their relation and see… ▶338Reflection
Louis AgassizThe resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being endowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man. ✨ Louis Agassiz (1863). Metho… ▶328Humanity
Louis AgassizA smattering of everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong, not through much learning, but by the… ▶252Thought
Louis AgassizIn Europe I have been accused of taking my scientific ideas from the Church. In America I have been called a heretic, because I will not let my church-going friends pat me on the … ▶3210Thought
Louis AgassizThe office of science is not to record possibilities; but to ascertain what nature does ... As far as Darwinism deals with mere arguments of possibilities or even probabilities, w… ▶297ReadingTruth
Louis AgassizThe surface of the earth is not simply a stage on which the thousands of present and past inhabitants played their parts in turn. There are much more intimate relations between th… ▶298LifeTime
Louis AgassizIt is the job of prophets and scientists alike to proclaim the glories of God.309Time
Louis AgassizA man cannot be professor of zoölogy on one day and of chemistry on the next, and do good work in both. As in a concert all are musicians,-one plays one instrument, and one anothe… ▶265Time
Louis AgassizThe theory [of evolution] is a scientific mistake.298Humor
Louis AgassizStudy nature not books3110Reading
Louis AgassizAmerica, so far as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the New World. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, hers the first shore washed… ▶246ReadingTime
Louis AgassizPhilosophers and theologians have yet to learn that a physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle. Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance.247Truth
Louis AgassizIt is better to have a few forms well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the first year's work, … ▶247Death
Louis AgassizThe eye of the trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he lived; for there is nothing in nature without a purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made t… ▶226Reading
Louis AgassizThe study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind.259Thought
Louis AgassizThe facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal. ✨ Louis Agassiz (1873). Geological Sketches, p.234… ▶226Truth
Louis AgassizOne naturally asks, what was the use of this great engine set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth? We have our answer in the fe… ▶182Reading
Louis AgassizI will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God-a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of… ▶2610HumanityLife
Louis AgassizWhen chemists have brought their knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time going… ▶161DeathPoliticsTime
Louis AgassizThere is no part of the country where in the summer you cannot get a sufficient supply of the best specimens. Teach your children to bring them in for themselves. Take your text f… ▶216Reading
Louis AgassizThe study of Nature is intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with Nature. At her lowest her works are the works of the highest powers, the highest something i… ▶227PoliticsThoughtTruth
