James Clerk Maxwell: Quotes about life

James Clerk Maxwell was Scottish physicist. Explore interesting quotes on life.
James Clerk Maxwell: 54   quotes 9   likes

“The world may be utterly crazy
And life may be labour in vain;
But I'd rather be silly than lazy,
And would not quit life for its pain.”

James Clerk Maxwell

Part III Poems, Tune, Il Segreto per esser felice (March 24, 1858)
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)

Life , Pain , World

“Ask no more, then, "what is best,
How shall those you love be blest,"
Ask at once eternal Rest,
Peace and assurance giving.
Rest of Life and not of death,
Rest in Love and Hope and Faith,
Til the God who gives their breath
Calls them to rest from living.”

James Clerk Maxwell

Part III Poems, "On St. David's Day. To Mrs. E. C. Morrieson." (March 1, 1854)
The Life of James Clerk Maxwell (1882)

Love , Life , Death , God

“He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday's work, lest he fall into despair; nor to-morrow's, lest he become a visionary—not that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work; nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.
Happy is the man who can recognise in the work of to-day a connected portion of the work of life and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.
Thus ought Man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible; nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.”

James Clerk Maxwell

Paper communicated to Frederic Farrar (1854) Æt. 23, as quoted in Lewis Campbell, William Garnett, The Life of James Clerk Maxwell: With Selections from His Correspondence and Occasional Writings (1884) pp. 144-145, https://books.google.com/books?id=B7gEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA144 and in Richard Glazebrook, James Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics (1896) pp. 39-40. https://books.google.com/books?id=hbcEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA39

Life , Truth , Confidence , Nature