“Having for their object the Science of Man, present difficulties exceedingly great, and, to merit confidence, must be collected upon a scale far too extended to be attempted by an individual philosopher.”
Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)
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Adolphe Quetelet 52
Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociolo… 1796–1874Related quotes

The Law of Mind (1892)

As We May Think (1945)
Context: The difficulty seems to be, not so much that we publish unduly in view of the extent and variety of present-day interests, but rather that publication has been extended far beyond our present ability to make real use of the record. The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships.

Source: Value-free science?: Purity and power in modern knowledge, 1991, p. 10

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

Watchword for the Roman Republic (1849)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

On his film Blow-Up, as quoted in Michelangelo Antonioni : The Complete Films (2004) edited by Seymour Chatman and Paul Duncan, p. 113
Context: The photographer in Blow-Up, who is not a philosopher, wants to see things closer up. But it so happens that, by enlarging too far, the object itself decomposes and disappears. Hence there's a moment in which we grasp reality, but then the moment passes. This was in part the meaning of Blow-Up.