"It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared. This globe, of which man imagines the haughty possessor, becomes, in the eyes of astronomer, merely a grain of dust floating in immensity of space: an earthquake, a tempest, an inundation, may destroy in an instant an entire people, or ruin the labours of twenty ages. ...But if each step in the career of science thus gradually diminishes his importance, his pride has a compensation in the greater idea of his intellectual power, by which he has been enabled to perceive those laws which seem to be, by their nature, placed for ever beyond his grasp."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
StatisticiansCriminologistsMathematicians from BelgiumAstronomers from BelgiumSociologists from Belgium
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Introductory
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adolphe_Quetelet
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Adolphe Quetelet
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (or Quételet) (22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Brussels. Quetelet was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences.
59 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Adolphe Quetelet →
Related Quotes
"The great body of population dynamics, like those of the motion of the celestial bodies, can be solved—and what is mo…"
"This great body (the social body) subsists by virtue of conservative principles, as does everything which has proceed…"
"Little by little his conversation, always instructive and animated, gave a special direction to my tastes, which woul…"
"The more advanced the sciences have become, the more they have tended to enter the domain of mathematics, which is a …"
"We then better understand the weakness of man, and the power of the Supreme: we are struck with the inflexible consta…"
"The Supreme has then not only spread life and movement throughout, and willed that its impress should be preserved, b…"
"The principal artists of the era of the revival of letters, such as Leon Baptista Alberti, Michael Angelo, Leonardo d…"
"It would be an error... to suppose that science makes the artist; yet it lends to him the most powerful assistance. I…"
"Artists have, for the most part, bound themselves down to follow a blind routine. Noble exceptions, however, have pre…"
"It has seemed to me that the theory (calcul) of probabilities ought to serve as the basis for the study of all the sc…"