Francis Galton Quotes

• What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.

  Francis Galton

  Nature, Kindness, Lying

  116 Copy quote

• Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.

  Francis Galton

  Eugenics, Agency, Quality

  Francis Galton (2015). “Memories of My Life”, p.335, Routledge

  83 Copy quote

• The phrase 'nature and nurture' is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth.

  Francis Galton

  Men, Two, Personality

  Francis Galton (1874). “English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture”, p.12

  90 Copy quote

• One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

  Francis Galton

  Law, Land, Civilization

  "Hereditary Talent and Character". MacMillan's Magazine, 12, 1865.

  56 Copy quote

• Characteristics cling to families.

  Francis Galton

  Characteristics, Heredity

  Sir Francis Galton (1870). “Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences”, p.5

  34 Copy quote

• I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

  Francis Galton

  Baby, Children, School

  Sir Francis Galton (1870). “Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences”, p.14

  77 Copy quote

• The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.

  Francis Galton

  Eugenics, Civilization, Class

  56 Copy quote

• We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea.

  Francis Galton

  Mean, Science, Men

  Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)

  44 Copy quote

• There is a steady check in an old civilisation upon the fertility of the abler classes: the improvident and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high civilisation.

  Francis Galton

  Race, Class, Generations

  "Hereditary Genius". Book by Francis Galton, p. 414, 1869.

  41 Copy quote

• All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.

  Francis Galton

  Animal, Men, Bystanders

  Francis Galton (2015). “Memories of My Life”, p.51, Routledge

  39 Copy quote

• Whenever you can, count.

  Francis Galton

  Math, Science, Statistics

  40 Copy quote

• [Statistics are] the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

  Francis Galton

  Cutting, Math, Men

  Natural Inheritance Normal Variability (pp. 62-3)

  51 Copy quote

• Englishmen Francis Galton to describe the "science" of bettering human stock and the elimination of unwanted characteristics... and individuals. Galton proposed societal intervention for the furtherance of "racial quality," maintaining that "Jews are specialized for a parasitical existence upon other nations" and that "except by sterilization I cannot yet see any way of checking the produce of the unfit who are allowed their liberty and are below the reach of moral control.

  Francis Galton

  Liberty, Quality, Way

  48 Copy quote

• Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not brutalized, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power of dealing with complicated phenomena is extraordinary. They are the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

  Francis Galton

  Hate, Cutting, Men

  Natural Inheritance Normal Variability (pp. 62-3)

  33 Copy quote

• Life is a republic where the individuals are for the most part unconscious that while they are working for themselves they are also working for the public good.

  Francis Galton

  Republic, Life Is, Individual

  Sir Francis Galton (0101). “Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development”, p.83, Prabhat Prakashan

  8 Copy quote

• The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.

  Francis Galton

  Science, Development, Spirit

  Francis Galton (2015). “Memories of My Life”, p.211, Routledge

  53 Copy quote

• The object . . . is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussion.

  Francis Galton

  Expression, Information, Facts

  Inquiries into Human Faculty Statistical Methods

  36 Copy quote

• A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.

  Francis Galton

  Strong, Intelligent, Men

  21 Copy quote

• Well-washed and well-combed domestic pets grow dull; they miss the stimulus of fleas.

  Francis Galton

  Dog, Missing, Pet

  21 Copy quote

• I do not so easily think in words.... after being hard at work having arrived at results that are perfectly clear... I have to translate my thoughts in a language that does not run evenly with them.

  Francis Galton

  Running, Thinking, Doe

  32 Copy quote

• I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.

  Francis Galton

  Math, Errors, Self

  Natural Inheritance Normal Variability (p. 66)

  36 Copy quote

• It is always the case with the best work, that it is misrepresented, and disparaged at first, for it takes a curiously long time for new ideas to become current, and the older men who ought to be capable of taking them in freely, will not do so through prejudice.

  Francis Galton

  Hard Work, Men, Ideas

  28 Copy quote

• It is notorious that the same discovery is frequently made simultaneously and quite independently, by different persons. Thus, to speak of only a few cases in late years, the discoveries of photography, of electric telegraphy, and of the planet Neptune through theoretical calculations, have all their rival claimants. It would seem, that discoveries are usually made when the time is ripe for them - that is to say, when the ideas from which they naturally flow are fermenting in the minds of many men.

  Francis Galton

  Photography, Science, Men

  "Hereditary Genius". Book by Francis Galton, 1869.

  34 Copy quote

• It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once.

  Francis Galton

  Lakes, Views, Average

  Natural Inheritance The Charms of Statistics (p. 62)

  28 Copy quote

• The conditions that direct the order of . . . the living world . . . are marked by their persistence in improving the birthright of successive generations.

  Francis Galton

  Persistence, Order, World

  Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development 'The Observed Order of Events'

  7 Copy quote

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