Justus von Liebig Quotes

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• Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power...it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.

  Justus von Liebig

  Perfect, Chocolate, Exhausted

  49 Copy quote

• The secret of all those who make discoveries is that they regard nothing as impossible.

  Justus von Liebig

  Travel, Discovery, Secret

  17 Copy quote

• The more fodder, the more flesh; the more flesh, the more manure; the more manure, the more grain.

  Justus von Liebig

  Flesh, Grain, Fodder

  Justus von Liebig (1863). “The natural laws of husbandry: Edited by John Blyth”, p.389

  9 Copy quote

• The progress of mankind is due exclusively to the progress of natural sciences, not to morals, religion or philosophy.

  Justus von Liebig

  Philosophy, Science, Religion

  5 Copy quote

• Observation is like a piece of glass, which, as a mirror, must be very smooth, and must be very carefully polished, in order that it may reflect the image pure and undistorted.

  Justus von Liebig

  Science, Glasses, Mirrors

  15 Copy quote

• The loveliest theories are being overthrown by these damned experiments; it's no fun being a chemist anymore.

  Justus von Liebig

  Fun, Science, Theory

  4 Copy quote

• A fact acquires its true and full value only through the idea which is developed from it.

  Justus von Liebig

  Ideas, Facts, Acquire

  Justus von Liebig (1859). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in its relation to Physiology, Dietetics, Agriculture, Commerce and Political Economy: Edited by John Blyth”, p.58

  8 Copy quote

• If you want to become a chemist, you will have to ruin your health. If you don't ruin your health studying, you won't accomplish anything these days in chemistry. Liebig's advice to Kekulé.

  Justus von Liebig

  Advice, Want, Ruins

  52 Copy quote

• Chemistry, in its application to animals and vegetables. Endeavours jointly with physiology to enlighten us respecting the mysterious processes and sources of organic life.

  Justus von Liebig

  Animal, Vegetables, Mysterious

  Justus von Liebig (1844). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, and its relation to Commerce, Physiology, and Agriculture: Edited by John Gardner”, p.10

  16 Copy quote

• A manure containing several ingredients acts in this wise: The effect of all of them in the soil accommodates itself to that one among them which, in comparison to the wants of the plant, is present in the smallest quantity.

  Justus von Liebig

  Wise, Science, Want

  8 Copy quote

• We may fairly judge of the commercial prosperity of a country from the amount of sulphuric acid it consumes.

  Justus von Liebig

  Country, Science, Judging

  Justus von Liebig (1844). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, and its relation to Commerce, Physiology, and Agriculture: Edited by John Gardner”, p.31

  4 Copy quote

• I have learnt that all our theories are not Truth itself, but resting places or stages on the way to the conquest of Truth, and that we must be contented to have obtained for the strivers after Truth such a resting place which, if it is on a mountain, permits us to view the provinces already won and those still to be conquered.

  Justus von Liebig

  Science, Views, Mountain

  10 Copy quote

• Receiving a new truth is like adding a new sense.

  Justus von Liebig

  Truth, Lying, Receiving

  5 Copy quote

• If it is impossible to judge merit and guilt in the field of natural science, then it is not possible in any field, and historical research becomes an idle, empty activity.

  Justus von Liebig

  Science, Judging, Historical

  8 Copy quote

• In this apparatus is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness. On his revolutionary method of organic analysis.

  Justus von Liebig

  Science, Simplicity, Analysis

  4 Copy quote

• The finest imagination in the world could not have conceived of a better idea than the philosophers' stone to inspire the minds and faculties of men. Without it, chemistry would not be what it is today. In order to discover that no such thing as the philosopher's stone existed, it was necessary to ransack and analyze every substance known on earth. And in precisely this lay its miraculous influence.

  Justus von Liebig

  Men, Order, Ideas

  6 Copy quote

• Since the discovery of oxygen the civilised world has undergone a revolution in manners and customs. The knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere, of the solid crust of the earth, of water, and of their influence upon the life of plants and animals, was linked to that discovery. The successful pursuit of innumerable trades and manufactures, the profitable separation of metals from their ores, also stand in the closest connection therewith.

  Justus von Liebig

  Successful, Animal, Discovery

  Justus von Liebig (1859). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in its relation to Physiology, Dietetics, Agriculture, Commerce and Political Economy: Edited by John Blyth”, p.5

  7 Copy quote

• By the deficiency or absence of one necessary constituent, all the others being present, the soil is rendered barren for all those crops to the life of which that one constituent is indispensable.

  Justus von Liebig

  Life, Earth, Soil

  Justus von Liebig (1855). “Principles of agricultural chemistry with special reference to the late researches made in England: By Justus von Liebig. (Ed. by William Gregory)”, p.31

  4 Copy quote

• I would... establish the conviction that Chemistry, as an independent science, offers one of the most powerful means towards the attainment of a higher mental cultivation; that the study of Chemistry is profitable, not only inasmuch as it promotes the material interests of mankind, but also because it furnishes us with insight into those wonders of creation which immediately surround us, and with which our existence, life, and development, are most closely connected.

  Justus von Liebig

  Powerful, Mean, Independent

  David M. Knight, Justus von Liebig (1998). “The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Familiar letters on chemistry”, p.1, Taylor & Francis

  5 Copy quote

• Without an acquaintance with chemistry, the statesman must remain a stranger to the true vital interests of the state, to the means of its organic development and improvement; ... The highest economic or material interests of a country, the increased and more profitable production of food for man and animals, ... are most closely linked with the advancement and diffusion of the natural sciences, especially of chemistry.

  Justus von Liebig

  Country, Knowledge, Mean

  Justus von Liebig (1859). “Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in its relation to Physiology, Dietetics, Agriculture, Commerce and Political Economy: Edited by John Blyth”, p.21

  4 Copy quote

• But it must not be forgotten that ... glass and porcelain were manufactured, stuffs dyed and metals separated from their ores by mere empirical processes of art, and without the guidance of correct scientific principles.

  Justus von Liebig

  Art, Knowledge, Science

  David M. Knight, Justus von Liebig (1998). “The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Familiar letters on chemistry”, p.2, Taylor & Francis

  7 Copy quote

• A time will come, when fields will be manured with a solution of glass (silicate of potash), with the ashes of burnt straw, and with the salts of phosphoric acid, prepared in chemical manufactories, exactly as at present medicines are given for fever and goitre.

  Justus von Liebig

  Science, Medicine, Glasses

  Justus von Liebig (1842). “Chemistry in its applications to agriculture and physiology: By Justus Liebig. Edited from the manuscript of the author by Lyon Playfair”, p.176

  4 Copy quote

• I have spent some months in England, have seen an awful lot and learned little. England is not a land of science, there is only a widely practised dilettantism, the chemists are ashamed to call themselves chemists because the pharmacists, who are despised, have assumed this name.

  Justus von Liebig

  Learning, Science, Land

  54 Copy quote

• There are various causes for the generation of force: a tensed spring, an air current, a falling mass of water, fire burning under a boiler, a metal that dissolves in an acid-one and the same effect can be produced by means of all these various causes. But in the animal body we recognise only one cause as the ultimate cause of all generation of force, and that is the reciprocal interaction exerted on one another by the constituents of the food and the oxygen of the air. The only known and ultimate cause of the vital activity in the animal as well as in the plant is a chemical process.

  Justus von Liebig

  Spring, Fall, Mean

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• What struck me most in England was the perception that only those works which have a practical tendency awake attention and command respect, while the purely scientific, which possess far greater merit are almost unknown. And yet the latter are the proper source from which the others flow. Practice alone can never lead to the discovery of a truth or a principle. In Germany it is quite the contrary. Here in the eyes of scientific men no value, or at least but a trifling one, is placed upon the practical results. The enrichment of science is alone considered worthy attention.

  Justus von Liebig

  Eye, Science, Men

  6 Copy quote

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