Geology Quotes - Page 3

• The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.

  Mark Twain

  Christian, Taken, Biblical

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• Geology differs as widely from cosmogony, as speculations concerning the creation of man differ from history.

  Charles Lyell

  Science, Men, Creation Of Man

  Sir Charles Lyell, Gérard Paul Deshayes (1830). “Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation”, p.4

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• Geology holds the keys of one of the kingdoms of nature; and it cannot be said that a science which extends our Knowledge, and by consequence our Power, over a third part of nature, holds a low place among intellectual employments.

  William Buckland

  Knowledge, Science, Keys

  William Buckland (1820). “Vindiciæ Geologicæ: The Connexion of Geology with Religion, Explained in an Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before University of Oxford, May 15, 1819, on the Endowment of Readership in Geology”, p.7

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• Physical geography and geology are inseparable scientific twins.

  Roderick Murchison

  Science, Twins, Geography

  "The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society: JRGS", Volume 27, p. cxxxvii, 1857.

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• I am here tracing the History of the Earth itself, from its own Monuments.

  Jean-Andre Deluc

  Science, Earth, Monument

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• America forms the longest and straightest bone in the earth's skeleton.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Science, Skeletons, America

  Ellsworth Huntington (1920). “The Red Man's Continent: A Chronicle of Aboriginal America”, p.25, Library of Alexandria

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• But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.

  Charles Darwin

  Lying, Believe, Theory Of Evolution

  Charles Darwin (2012). “On the Origin of the Species and The Voyage of the Beagle”, p.162, Graphic Arts Books

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• On the first page of the Bible there is an instance of how literalism is but an invitation to transcend the image to which literalism points. That first page is not geology, biology or paleontology; it is high religion. For there we are told who we are in terms of our constititutive text. And if we could understand that, we would worrying about whether the antelopes or the cantaloupes came in a certain order.

  Joseph Sittler

  Order, Worry, Firsts

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• Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to regard them as part of the present order of Nature.

  Charles Lyell

  Nature, Science, Order

  Charles Lyell (1837). “Principles of Geology0: Being an Inquiry how Far the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface are Referable to Causes Now in Operation : In 4 Volumes”, p.134

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• Astronomy concerns itself with the whole of the visible universe, of which our earth forms but a relatively insignificant part; while Geology deals with that earth regarded as an individual. Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, while Geology is one of the newest. But the two sciences have this in common, that to both are granted a magnificence of outlook, and an immensity of grasp denied to all the rest.

  Charles Lapworth

  Science, Two, Earth

  Proceedings of the Geological Survey of London. "Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations" by Carl C. Gaither, p. 873, 2012.

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• We are not to suppose, that there is any violent exertion of power, such as is required in order to produce a great event in little time; in nature, we find no deficiency in respect of time, nor any limitation with regard to power. But time is not made to flow in vain; nor does there ever appear the exertion of superfluous power, or the manifestation of design, not calculated in wisdom to effect some general end.

  James Hutton

  Nature, Science, Power

  James Hutton (1788*). “Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. (From. the Trans., Roy. soc. of Edinb.).”, p.86

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• This boulder seemed like a curious volume, regularly paged, with a few extracts from older works. Bacon tells us that "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Of the last honour I think the boulder fully worthy.

  Archibald Geikie

  Book, Science, Thinking

  Sir Archibald Geikie (1858). “The Story of a Boulder: Or, Gleanings from the Note-book of a Field Geologist”, p.4

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• A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood... How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

  Richard P. Feynman

  Writing, Wine, Glasses

  "The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume I; lecture 3: "The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences")". Book by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands, 1964.

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• The successive series of stratified formations are piled on one another, almost like courses of masonry.

  William Buckland

  Science, Masonry, Courses

  William Buckland (1836). “Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology”, p.37

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• In the preface to his great History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher wrote: "Men wiser than and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave ..." It seems to me that the same is true of the much older [geological stratigraphical] history of Europe.

  D. V. Ager

  Wisdom, Science, Men

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• The Bible is the Only Book That Can Make Us Wise unto Salvation. The Bible is not a book to be studied as we study geology and astronomy, merely to find out about the earth's formation and the structure of the universe; but it is a book revealing truth, designed to bring us into living union with God.

  George Frederick Pentecost

  Christian, Wise, Book

  George Frederick Pentecost (1885). “"In the Volume of the Book ": Or, the Profit and Pleasure of Bible Study ... with an Introduction by Revs. Joseph Cook and J.H. Vincent”

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• So says the most ancient book of the Earth; thus it is written on its leaves of marble, lime, sand, slate, and clay: ... that our Earth has fashioned itself, from its chaos of substances and powers, through the animating warmth of the creative spirit, to a peculiar and original whole, by a series of preparatory revolutions, till at last the crown of its creation, the exquisite and tender creature man, was enabled to appear.

  Johann Gottfried Herder

  Book, Science, Men

  Johann Gottfried Herder (1800). “Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man”, p.259

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• We cannot see how the evidence afforded by the unquestioned progressive development of organised existence-crowned as it has been by the recent creation of the earth's greatest wonder, MAN, can be set aside, or its seemingly necessary result withheld for a moment. When Mr. Lyell finds, as a witty friend lately reported that there had been found, a silver-spoon in grauwacke, or a locomotive engine in mica-schist, then, but not sooner, shall we enrol ourselves disciples of the Cyclical Theory of Geological formations.

  George Julius Poulett Scrope

  Witty, Science, Men

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• Sedimentation in the past has often been very rapid indeed and very spasmodic. This may be called the "Phenomenon of the Catastrophic Nature of the Stratigraphical Record."

  D. V. Ager

  Science, Past, Records

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• When we trace the part of which this terrestrial system is composed, and when we view the general connection of those several parts, the whole presents a machine of a peculiar construction by which it is adapted to a certain end. We perceive a fabric, erected in wisdom, to obtain a purpose worthy of the power that is apparent in the production of it.

  James Hutton

  Science, Views, Connections

  James Hutton (1795). “Theory of the Earth: With Proofs and Illustrations”, p.109, Library of Alexandria

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• With respect to those points, on which the declaration of Scripture is positive and decisive, as, for instance, in asserting the low antiquity of the human race; the evidence of all facts that have yet been established in Geology coincides with the records of Sacred History and Profane Tradition to confirm the conclusion that the existence of mankind can on no account be supposed to have taken its beginning before that time which is assigned to it in the Mosaic writings.

  William Buckland

  Taken, Writing, Science

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• Nothing perhaps has so retarded the reception of the higher conclusions of Geology among men in general, as ... [the] instinctive parsimony of the human mind in matters where time is concerned.

  Charles Lapworth

  Time, Science, Men

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• During my second year at Edinburgh [1826-27] I attended Jameson's lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredible dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology.

  Charles Darwin

  Determination, Book, Science

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• Who are the farmer's servants? ... Geology and Chemistry, the quarry of the air, the water of the brook, the lightning of the cloud, the castings of the worm, the plough of the frost.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Clouds, Air

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.675, Modern Library

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• A permanent base on Mars would have a number of advantages beyond being a bonanza for planetary science and geology. If, as some evidence suggests, exotic micro-organisms have arisen independently of terrestrial life, studying them could revolutionise biology, medicine and biotechnology.

  Paul Davies

  Medicine, Numbers, Exotic

  "Fly me to Mars. One-way" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. September 15, 2009.

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