"there is this poetry. There is this science. The farther along the way we go in each, the more clearly the relationship may be perceived, the more prodigal the gifts. The definitions of Western culture have, classically, separated these two disciplines. When Darwin wrote of Humboldt that he displayed the rare union between poetry and science, he set the man in a line of heroes of that meeting-place-a line which includes Lucretius and Goethe and Leonardo, but which for the last centuries has been obscured in the critical structure which insists that the forms of imagination are not only separate, but exclusive."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Muriel Rukeyser The Life of Poetry (1949)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alexander von Humboldt
1769 – 1859
deutscher Naturwissenschaftler, Ethnologe und Geograph, Bruder von [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]]
34 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alexander von Humboldt →
Related Quotes
"While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and…"
"The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness."
"In order to ameliorate without commotion new institutions must be made, as it were, to rise out of those which the ba…"
"The principal impulse by which I was directed was the earnest endeavor to comprehend the phenomena of physical object…"
"One of the noblest characteristics which distinguish modern civilization from that of remoter times is, that it has e…"
"Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us."
"(In 2019) more than 150 years ago, Alexander von Humboldt warned that “the restless activity of large communities of …"
"Devoted from my earliest youth to the study of nature, feeling with enthusiasm the wild beauties of a country guarded…"
"Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little…"
"From the remotest nebulæ and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal c…"