Top 8 Quotes & Sayings by David Brewster

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British physicist David Brewster.
Last updated on November 23, 2024.
David Brewster

Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA Scot FSSA MICE was a British scientist, inventor, author, and academic administrator. In science he is principally remembered for his experimental work in physical optics, mostly concerned with the study of the polarization of light and including the discovery of Brewster's angle. He studied the birefringence of crystals under compression and discovered photoelasticity, thereby creating the field of optical mineralogy. For this work, William Whewell dubbed him the "father of modern experimental optics" and "the Johannes Kepler of optics."

Truths physical have an origin as divine as truths religious.
There are many points in the history of an invention which the inventor himself is apt to overlook as trifling, but in which posterity never fail to take a deep interest. The progress of the human mind is never traced with such a lively interest as through the steps by which it perfects a great invention; and there is certainly no invention respecting which this minute information will be more eagerly sought after, than in the case of the steam-engine.
Prophetic of infidel times, and indicating the unsoundness of our general education, 'The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation', has started into public favour with a fair chance of poisoning the fountains of science, and sapping the foundations of religion.
Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon. — © David Brewster
Man, made after God's image, was a nobler creation than twinkling sparks in the sky, or than the larger and more useful lamp of the moon.
And why does England thus persecute the votaries of her science? Why does she depress them to the level of her hewers of wood and her drawers of water? Is it because science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife? ... Can we behold unmoved the science of England, the vital principle of her arts, struggling for existence, the meek and unarmed victim of political strife?
Science ever has been, and ever must be, the safeguard of religion.
If the God of revelation is most appropriately worshipped in the temple of religion, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge.
A mere inference or theory must give way to a truth revealed; but a scientific truth must be maintained, however contradictory it may appear to the most cherished doctrines of religion.
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