Adolphe Quetelet: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Little by little his conversation, always instructive and animated, gave a special direction to my tastes, which would have led me by preference towards letters. I resolved to complete my scientific studies and followed the courses in advanced mathematics given by M. [Jean Guillaume] Gamier. It was at the same time agreed by us that, in order to relieve him in his work, I should give some of the other courses with which he was charged. I thus found myself his pupil and his colleague.”

Adolphe Quetelet

"Notice sur J.G. Garnier," Annuaire de l'acad. roy. de Brux. (1841) Vol. vii pp. 200-201 as quoted in Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician by Frank Hamilton Hankins

Mathematics , Study , Time , Animals

“The great body of population dynamics, like those of the motion of the celestial bodies, can be solved—and what is most remarkable, there is a surprising analogy between the formulas employed in these calculations. I believe that I have achieved to some extent what I have long said about the possibility of founding a social mechanics on the model established by celestial mechanics—to formulate the motions of the social body in accordance with those of celestial bodies, and to find there again the same properties and laws of conservation.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Astronomie élémentaire? (1834) as quoted by Theodore M. Porter, "From Quetelet to Maxwell: Social Statistics and the Origin of Statistical Physics" in The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences: Some Critical and Historical Perspectives (2013) ed., I. Bernard Cohen

Law

“I have been surprised to find how little variety of opinion exists, in different places, regarding what they concurred in terming the beautiful.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Beauty

“The Supreme has then not only spread life and movement throughout, and willed that its impress should be preserved, but has done more; for he has permitted man to associate in some degree with his work, and to modify it.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Adolphe Quételet. 1981. Letters addressed to H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, on the theory of probability. Arno Press, p. 134

Life

“What! when it is necessary to take the most simple resolve, we are under the domination of our habitudes, our wants, our social relations, and a host of causes which, all of them, draw us about in a hundred different ways. These influences are so powerful, that we have no difficulty in telling, even when referring to persons whom we are scarcely acquainted with, or even know not at all, what is the resolution to which they will lead such parties. Whence, then, this certainty of foresight, exemplified by you daily, if you were not convinced, at the outset, that it is extremely probable the empire of causes will carry it over free-will. In considering the moral world a priori, you give to this free-will the most entire latitude; and when you come to practice, when you speak of what passes around you, you constantly fall into contradiction with yourselves.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

World , Way , Drawing , Personality

“Social physics never can pretend to discover laws which will verify themselves in every particular, in the case of isolated individuals. The science will have rendered a service sufficiently vast, in giving more precise views upon a host of points, of which vague glimpses only were before possessed.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Law , Science

“We might even predict annually how many individuals will stain their hands with the blood of their fellow-men, how many will be forgers, how many will deal in poison, pretty nearly in the same way as we may foretell annual births and deaths.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Death , Men , Way , Birth

“And wherefore? Because we are thoroughly convinced that laws, education, and religion exercise a salutary influence on society, and that moral causes have their certain effects.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
Context: From the examination of numbers, I believed myself justified in inferring, as a natural consequence, that, in given circumstances, and the influence of the same causes, we may reckon upon witnessing the repetition of the same effects, reproduction of the same crimes, and the same convictions. What has resulted from this exposition? Timorous persons have raised the cry of fatalism. If, however, some one said, "Man is born free; nothing force his free-will; he underlies the influence of external causes; cease to assimilate him to a machine, or to pretend to modify his actions. Therefore, ye legislators, repeal your laws; overturn your prisons; break your chains in pieces; your convictions penalties are of no avail; they are so many acts barbarous revenge. Ye philosophers and priests, speak no more of ameliorations, social or religious; you are materialists, because you assume to society like a piece of gross clay; you are fatalists, because you believe yourselves predestined to influence man in the exercise of his free-will, and to the course of his actions." If, I say, any one held such language to us, we should be disgusted with its excessive folly. And wherefore? Because we are thoroughly convinced that laws, education, and religion exercise a salutary influence on society, and that moral causes have their certain effects.

Education , Religion , Law , Exercises

“To him… who had examined the laws of light merely in a drop of water, the brilliant phenomenon of the rainbow would be totally unintelligible.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Law , Light , Water

“It is of primary importance to keep out of view man as he exists in an insulated, separate, or in an individual state, and to regard him only as a fraction of the species. In thus setting aside his individual nature, we get quit of all which is accidental, and the individual peculiarities, which exercise scarcely any influence over the mass, become effaced of their own accord, allowing the observer to seize the general results.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Exercises , Nature

“We both call in experience to the support of our opinions; but, in your case, the experience is based on vague uncertainties, whilst I, more circumspect, strive never to lose sight of those scientific principles which ought to guide the observer in all his investigations. My aim is not to defend systems, or bolster up theories; I confine myself to the citation of facts, such as society presents to our view. If these facts be legitimately established, it follows that we must accept of and accommodate our reason to them.”

Adolphe Quetelet

Preface of M. Quetelet
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)