University Of Cambridge Faculty

"Those who took the road to democracy to be the road to freedom mistook temporary means for an ultimate end."

"It is hard to think away out of our heads a history which has long lain in a remote past but which once lay in the future."

"All Europe over, lawyers were being at once attracted and puzzled by the Roman doctrine of possession... Roman law compels us to hold that there are some occupiers who are not possessors. In an evil hour the English judges, who were controlling a new possessory action, which had been suggested by foreign models, adopted this theory at the expense of the termor... English law for six centuries and more will rue this youthful flirtation with Romanism."

"It was a court of politicians enforcing a policy, not a court of judges administering the law."

"Maitland did not write a history of the constitution nor narrative history like Freeman. He thought that Freeman and most English historians (but not Stubbs) were insular. They had not learnt the German way of interpreting history. It should not be interpreted through their rulers, the battles they had fought and the treaties they had made. It should be interpreted through the origins of their land, their institutions, their language and their folk tales and myths. He did not, like Marx, invest an all-embracing theory that would explain the inseparable processes that determined the direction in which society must move."

"It was his long and dazzling introduction to Otto Gierke's Political Theories of the Middle Ages that made me first realize what the history of ideas could be. When Leslie Stephen's wife died Maitland wrote to him, "I have an irrepressible wish, however foolish and wrong it may be, to touch your hand and tell you in two words what I think of you." I have the same foolish and irrepressible wish about Maitland."

"He was introducing a set of documents and not rewriting the history of parliament."

"We may safely say that Maitland will remain a force and an inspiration when some, even of those who occupied the woolsack, are mere names. If all his theories could be overthrown, all his positive results peptonized into textbooks, he would still live as a model of critical method, a model of style, and a model of intellectual temper. He shall not be shamed, whatever records leap to light. A century hence his name will stand higher still than it does to-day."

"It was Maitland's good fortune to be only moderately successful academically as a young man, so he escaped the easy assurance of the eminently successful man looking at the world. He had to learn about documents the hard way, in a conveyancer's office. This taught him to keep close to the ground. He learned that the approach to history must be through drudgery, and that no amount of elegance, economy, and precision of mind can take the place of an enormous capacity for hard work. He had no successors. Yet in a sense all modern historical researchers are his successors. Maitland's virtues are the virtues we should all like to possess; his way of doing things is the way of all modern research."

"By the History of English Law, and Domesday Book and Beyond, to say nothing of Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, and his other contributions to legal history, Professor Maitland has laid students of the English constitution under obligations that are incalculable."

"While others lingered among the tombs, he drew his knowledge of our law, not from the sepulchres of its sages, but straight from the source itself. For him no fetish blocked the way; for him no vain repetition of statements from the legal Talmud would make those statements true. If “Co. Litt.” was wrong, it was not blasphemy to say so; to treat its “sentence” as a judgment from which there was no appeal was worthy of the Middle Ages. I do not know, nor do I suppose that the famous Downing Professor ever said so much, but one can imagine, had he spoken out, how his witty raillery might have shocked the veterans of Bench and Bar. For in his ever vivid originality, in the daring brilliance of his style, Maitland was the Whistler of the Law."

"Changing animals by putting human genes or cells into their structure is one way of making them more resemble the bit of the human condition you're interested in studying."

"Where people worry is when you get to the brain, the germ cells and the sentinel features that help people recognize what is a person, as opposed to a rat or a rabbit. Things like skin texture, facial shape, speech, replacing brain cells with human cells, allowing the development of human germ cells in animals. And particularly where there is any possibility of fertilisation within an animal."

"Any scientist, myself or another, can become so enamoured of his brain child that he resents criticism."

"In many materials the electrical behavior changes from metallic to nonmetallic when the pressure, temperature or magnetic field is varied or (as in alloys) when the composition is varied, and the theoretical description of these processes is quite complicated. The interest of the problem lies perhaps mainly in our imperfect understanding of the nature of a metal. In the days before quantum mechanics, when I first attended undergraduate lectures on the electron theory of solids, it was taught that in metals one or more atoms from each electron were free, whereas in nonmetals they were somehow fixed to the atoms or ions or to the chemical bonds. The long mean free paths of electrons in metals extending over hundreds or thousands of atomic spacings were not understood, and neither was the absence of any large contribution from the electrons to the specific heat."

"The hypothesis that the electron has a magnetic moment was, as is well known, first introduced to account for the duplexity phenomena of atomic spectra. More recently, however, Dirac has succeeded in accounting for these same phenomena by the introduction of a modified wave equation, which conforms both to the principle of relativity and to the general transformation theory. Formally, at least, on the new theory also, the electron has a magnetic moment of εh/mc, but when the electron is in an atom we cannot observe this magnetic moment directly; we can only observe the moment of the whole atom, or, of course, the splitting of the spectral lines, which we may say is “caused” by this moment."

"... in terms of modern solid state physics, what does “transparent” mean? It means that, in the energy spectrum of the electrons in the material, there is a gap of forbidden energies between the occupied states (the valence band) and the empty states (the conduction band); light quanta corresponding to a visible wave-length do not have the energy needed to make electrons jump across it. This gap is quite a sophisticated concept, entirely dependent on quantum mechanics, and introduced for solids in the 1930’s by the pioneering work of Bloch, Peierls and A. H. Wilson. The theory was based on the assumption that the material was crystalline. ... my coworkers and I ... asked the question "how can glass be transparent?"."

"Climate change is not the biggest challenge of our time, it's the biggest challenge of all time."

"... the biggest risk to the British Isles from climate change would be from flooding this side of the end of the century."

"Integrity is a scientist's most precious possession, and I have guarded mine carefully through 40 years of research. If any government tried to persuade me to change my scientific views for political purposes I would certainly resign. Happily, my experiences to date suggest that this is never likely to happen. Thus it is my scientific, not political, opinion that nuclear energy should be part of a wide portfolio of approaches."

"Today we have economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive. What we need are economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow."

"Calling all economic rebels: humanity's future depends on you. Yes, really. Because, unless we transform the economic and public debate, we stand very little chance indeed of thriving in this century."

"The evidence is closing in more and more rigorously that the medium which transmits electrical and radiant effects must either completely accompany matter in bulk in its movements or else be entirely independent of such movements."

"The direct knowledge of matter that mankind can acquire is a knowledge of the average behaviour and relations of the crowd of molecules."

"The physical properties of fluid media, as regards change of state, and as regards capillary phenomena, have been closely illustrated in theory by consideration of a model medium, subject to internal expansive pressure, of kinetic or other origin, which is counteracted by the contractive effect of mutual attraction between its molecules—the latter force extending through much the greater, though for ordinary purposes still insensible, range. For liquids, the difference between these two much larger quantities, of different types, constitutes the transmitted hydrostatic pressure."

"From remote ages the great question with which, since Newton's time, we have been familiar under the somewhat misleading antithesis of contact versus distance, has engaged speculation,—how is that portions of matter can interact on each other which seem to have no means of connexion between them. Can a body act where it is not?"

"A very large number of optical phenomena have been examined by various experimenters with a view to detecting an influence on them of the Earth's velocity of translation. The only such influence that has been announced is that found by Fizeau on the displacement of the plane of polarization of light, produced by transmission through a pile of glass plates: according to Fizeau's own view the experiment was uncertain owing to the numerous disturbing causes that had to be guarded against; and this doubt as to the feasibility of the observations has been fully shared by Maxwell and most authorities who have considered the matter."

"The researches by which Sir Joseph Larmor will chiefly be remembered belong to the decade 1892–1901, which is now recognized as a transition period in physics. ... Before the end of the decade X-rays, electrons and radio-activity had again set experimental physics in feverish progress, to be followed later by revolutionary changes in the foundations of physical theory. But at the time when Larmor started on his main work there was little to inspire new ideas. ... Classical physics was indeed near the end of its tether. Of those who yet contrived to make substantial progress at this difficult stage—who brought classical physics finally to the point where new methods became inevitable—two names stand out prominently, Lorentz and Larmor. Their work had much in common, so that it is sometimes difficult to assess their contributions separately. Larmor’s reputation has perhaps been overshadowed by that of Lorentz. But on any estimate, Larmor’s achievements rank high; and his place in science is secure as one who re-kindled the dying embers of the old physics to prepare the advent of the new."

"It will appear, no doubt, that at various periods of our history there have been decisions as to the nature and description of the religious solemnities necessary for the completion of a perfect marriage, which cannot be reconciled together; but there will be found no authority to contravene the general position, that at all times, by the common law of England, it was essential to the constitution of a full and complete marriage, that there must be some religious solemnity; that both modes of obligation should exist together, the civil and the religious."

"Every Court is the guardian of its own records, and master of its own practice."

"Immemorial enjoyment is the most solid of all titles."

"Illegality is not to be presumed; it is to be alleged and proved when it does not appear on the face of the instrument itself."

"It is between the stirrup and the ground, Brother; but you may amend by replying."

"There is no reason for assuming, that the time of medical men and attornies is more valuable than that of others whose livelihood depends on their own exertions."

"It is to be remembered that contracts in restraint of trade are in themselves, if nothing more appears to show them reasonable, bad in the eye of the law."

"The intention of the testator is the polar star by which we must be guided."

"Whatever is injurious to the interests of the public is void, on the grounds of public policy."

"It is fraud in law if a party makes representations which he knows to be false, and injury ensues, although the motives from which the representations proceeded may not have been bad."

"Whatever restraint is larger than the necessary protection of the party, can be of no benefit to either, it can only be oppressive; and if oppressive, it is, in the eye of the law unreasonable."

"Judicial decisions in Courts of justice are ranked by Lord Hale as one of the grounds or constituents of the common law."

"We should not be too strict in construing instruments or contracts generally drawn up on the spur of the moment."

"It doesn’t take much refection—and indeed only a little research—to discover that the kind of conservative readings of the Genesis story that are often put up in opposition to what it is thought Darwin said (often without bothering to read what Darwin himself had to say) bear almost no relation to what we find in the refection of the fathers on the account found in Genesis. Such Christians have imagined a tradition that has no right to call itself tradition."

"He firmly believed in apparitions, and stoutly defended the theory of the individuality of every soul in which "personality, memory, and conscience will surely continue in the future state." He divided the astral spirit of man after its exit from the body into two distinct entities: the "aerial" and the "aethereal vehicle." During the time that a disembodied man moves in its aerial clothing, he is subject to Fate -- i.e., evil and temptation, attached to its earthly interests, and therefore is not utterly pure; it is only when he casts off this garb of the first spheres and becomes ethereal that he becomes sure of his immortality. "For what shadow can that body cast that is a pure and transparent light, such as the ethereal vehicle is? And therefore that oracle is then fulfilled, when the soul has ascended into that condition we have already described, in which alone it is out of the reach of fate and mortality." He concludes his work by stating that this transcendent and divinely-pure condition was the only aim of the Pythagoreans."

"Although neither an alchemist, magician, nor astrologer, but simply a great philosopher, Henry More, of Cambridge University — a man universally esteemed, may be named as a shrewd logician, scientist, and metaphysician. His belief in witchcraft was firm throughout his life. His faith in immortality and able arguments in demonstration of the survival of man's spirit after death are all based on the Pythagorean system, adopted by Cardan, Van Helmont, and other mystics. The infinite and uncreated spirit that we usually call God, a substance of the highest virtue and excellency, produced everything else by emanative causality. God thus is the primary substance, the rest, the secondary; if the former created matter with a power of moving itself, he, the primary substance, is still the cause of that motion as well as of the matter, and yet we rightly say that it is matter which moves itself. "We may define this kind of spirit we speak of to be a substance indiscernible, that can move itself, that can penetrate, contract, and dilate itself, and can also penetrate, move, and alter matter,"("Antidote," lib. i., cap. 4.) which is the third emanation."

"As to the skeptics of his age, his language is contemptuous and severe. Speaking of Scot, Adie, and Webster, he terms them "our new inspired saints . . . sworn advocates of the witches, who thus madly and boldly, against all sense and reason, against all antiquity, all interpreters, and against the Scripture itself, will have even no Samuel in the scene, but a confederate knave! Whether the Scripture, or these inblown buffoons, puffed up with nothing but ignorance, vanity, and stupid infidelity, are to be believed, let any one judge," he adds. ("Letter to Glanvil, the author of 'Sadducismus Triumphatus,' May, 25, 1678.") What kind of language would this eminent divine have used against our skeptics of the nineteenth century? p. 206"

"Tell mankind Jehovah reigns; He shall bind the world in chains, So as it shall never slide, And with sacred justice guide. Let the smiling heavens rejoice, Joyful earth exalt her voice; Let the dancing billows roar, Echoes answer from the shore, Fields their flowery mantles shake; All shall in their joy partake; While the wood-musicians sing To the ever-youthful spring. Fill His courts with sacred mirth; Lo! He comes to judge the earth: Justly He the world shall sway, And His truth to men display."

"True religion, sprung from God above, Is, like her fountain, full of charity, Embracing all things with a tender love, Full of good will and meek expectancy, Full of true justice and sure verity, In heart and voice; free, large, even infinite, Not wedged in straight peculiarity, But grasping all in her vast active spright: Bright lamp of God! that men would joy in thy pure light!"

"...indeed, if there were any modesty left in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the existence of angels and spirits... I look upon it as a special piece of Providence that . . . fresh examples of apparitions may awaken our benumbed and lethargic minds into an assurance that there are other intelligent beings besides those that are clothed in heavy earth or clay . . . for this evidence, showing that there are bad spirits, will necessarily open a door to the belief that there are good ones, and lastly, that there is a God."

"Flowers fade and fly, and flying fill the sky; Their bloom departs, their perfume gone, yet who stands pitying by? ... Oh, let me sadly bury them beside these steps to-night! ... Farewell, dear flowers, for ever now, thus buried as 'twas best, I have not yet divined when I with you shall sink to rest. I who can bury flowers like this a laughing-stock shall be; I cannot say in days to come what hands shall bury me. See how when spring begins to fail each opening floweret fades; So too there is a time of age and death for beauteous maids; And when the fleeting spring is gone, and days of beauty o'er, Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die, and both are known no more."

"A Chinese poem is at best a hard nut to crack."