William Whewell Quotes

“Conscience is the reason employed about questions of right and wrong.”

“Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error.”

“Those who have obtained the farthest insight into nature have been, in all ages, firm believers in God.”

“We cannot observe external things without some degree of thought; nor can we reflect upon our thoughts, without being influenced in the course of our reflection by the Things which we have observed.”

“Astronomy is the only progressive science which the ancient world produced.”

“The person who did most to give to analysis the generality and symmetry which are now its pride, was also the person who made mechanics analytical; I mean Euler.”

“Every failure is a step to success.”

“The catastrophist constructs theories, the uniformitarian demolishes them.”

“There is a mask of theory over the whole face of nature.”

“We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a scientist.”