“Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.”

—  Alexander von Humboldt

Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 23, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little t…" by Alexander von Humboldt?
Alexander von Humboldt photo
Alexander von Humboldt 11
Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer 1769–1859

Related quotes

Alfred Austin photo

“A little knowledge is said to be a dangerous thing, but it is not dangerous to the imagination. Knowledge is to the imagination what fuel is to flame. A little feeds it; a great deal extinguishes it.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: The Poet's Diary (1904), p. 158.

Luís de Camões photo

“The lover becomes the thing he loves
By virtue of much imagining;
Since what I long for is already in me,
The act of longing should be enough.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia photo

“It needs very little reflection to see that a school for rich children only cannot be a rational school. From the very nature of things it will tend to insist on the maintenance of privilege and the securing of their advantages. The only sound and enlightened form of school is that which co-educates the poor and the rich, which brings the one class into touch with the other in the innocent equality of childhood, by means of the systematic equality of the rational school.”

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909) Spanish anarchist

The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)

David Hume photo

“The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section 4 : Sceptical Doubts Concerning The Operations of The Understanding
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

William Hazlitt photo

“Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Wit and Humour"
Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

Adam Smith photo

“As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.”

Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Section I, Chap. V.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I

H. G. Wells photo

“They may fight against greatness in us who are the children of men, but can they conquer? Even if they should destroy us every one, what then? Would it save them? No! For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only in the Food, but in the purpose of all things! It is in the nature of all things, it is part of space and time.”

H. G. Wells book The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
Context: They may fight against greatness in us who are the children of men, but can they conquer? Even if they should destroy us every one, what then? Would it save them? No! For greatness is abroad, not only in us, not only in the Food, but in the purpose of all things! It is in the nature of all things, it is part of space and time. To grow and still to grow, from first to last that is Being, that is the law of life. What other law can there be?

Patrick Rothfuss photo

“Nobles’ sons are one of nature’s great destructive forces, like floods or tornadoes. When you’re struck with one of these catastrophes, the only thing an average man can do is grit his teeth and try to minimize the damage.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 31, “The Nature of Nobility” (p. 222)

Cyril Norman Hinshelwood photo

“The natural sciences are sometimes said to have no concern with values, nor to seek morality and goodness, and therefore belong to an inferior order of things. Counter-claims are made that they are the only living and dynamic studies… Both contentions are wrong. Language, Literature and Philosophy express, reflect and contemplate the world. But it is a world in which men will never be content to stay at rest, and so these disciplines cannot be cut off from the great searching into the nature of things without being deprived of life-blood.”

Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (1897–1967) English physical chemist

Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood. "Presidential Address to Classical Association," 1959; Partly quotes in: Chemists through the years, part 1, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 1994.

Related topics