Louis Agassiz: Greatness

Louis Agassiz was Swiss naturalist. Explore interesting quotes on greatness.

Louis Agassiz: 16 quotes0 likes

“Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it has been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it.”

Louis Agassiz

As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) edited by Alan L. Mackay, ( p. 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=KwESE88CGa8C&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=every+scientific+truth+goes+through+three+stages+first+people+say+it+conflicts+with+the+bible+next+they+say+it+had+been+discovered+before+lastly+they+say+they+always+believed+in+it&source=web&ots=DKSjGVklFG&sig=TGpJ6LSI9CE4s7Nu8wUiGAq3rgI)

“The crust of our earth is a great cemetery, where the rocks are tombstones on which the buried dead have written their own epitaphs.”

Louis Agassiz

Geological Sketches (1870), ch. 2, p. 31 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044018968388;view=1up;seq=49

“The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge.”

Louis Agassiz

Evolution and Permanence of Type (1874)