A Quote by Herbert Spencer

... those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded... Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phenomena - care not to understand the architecture of the heavens, but are deeply interested in some contemptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots!

Herbert Spencer

Quote Topics

About Architecture Care Contemptible Controversy Deeply Entered Heavens How Indeed Indifferent Interested Know Mary Men Never Occupy Phenomena Poetry Queen Sad Scientific Scots See Some Surrounded Themselves Those Tithe Understand Which

Quote Author

Herbert Spencer
English - Philosopher
April 27, 1820 - December 8, 1903

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

Herbert Spencer

D'Alembert was always surrounded by controversy. ... he was the lightning rod which drew sparks from all the foes of the philosophes. ... Unfortunately he carried this... pugnacity into his scientific research and once he had entered a controversy, he argued his cause with vigour and stubbornness. He closed his mind to the possibility that he might be wrong.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Mary Queen of Scots is the most 'normal' girl who became a queen that I have ever written about.

Kathryn Lasky

I start 'The Code Book' with the story of Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot, which was foiled when Mary's enciphered messages fell into the hands of Elizabeth I's codebreakers.

Simon Singh

A beautiful woman is born Queen of men and women both, as Mary Stuart was born Queen of Scots, whether men or women.

Herman Melville

I was always interested in the larger picture, I was pre-law in college, and had a degree in economics. I was very interested in the big question 'how then shall we live?,' how do we organize as a civilization when we are so different, and often don't get along, yet we know at some point we have to unite for the common good? I actually really care about those issues, and I'm driven to understand how it works.

Jay Roach

For example, there are numbers of chemists who occupy themselves exclusively with the study of dyestuffs. They discover facts that are useful to scientific chemistry; but they do not rank as genuine scientific men. The genuine scientific chemist cares just as much to learn about erbium-the extreme rarity of which renders it commercially unimportant-as he does about iron. He is more eager to learn about erbium if the knowledge of it would do more to complete his conception of the Periodic Law, which expresses the mutual relations of the elements.

Charles Sanders Peirce

As time passed I became an avid reader of popular scientific books, wanting to know as much as I could about the world in which I lived. Gradually I began to see a pattern of nonsense in much scientific writing. Scientific explanations given regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena simply didn't make sense.

Vine Deloria Jr.

Mary Queen of Scots was my first love, and that is always something special.

Antonia Fraser

After Mary Queen of Scots, I turned to the farthest subject possible: Cromwell.

Antonia Fraser

We are not called upon to enter into controversy with those who hold false theories. Controversy is unprofitable. Christ never entered into it. 'It is written' is the weapon used by the world's Redeemer. Let us keep close to the Word. Let us allow the Lord Jesus and His messengers to testify. We know that their testimony is true.

Ellen G. White

There's great poetry in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I'm not interested in trying to prove whether this paragraph is as it was or as it should have been or should not be. My pursuit is to find the truth for me in those stories and make them apropos. The important thing is that people wrote them. These were inspirational stories, and you got to see them that way. If you don't, you'll get in trouble. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to find out whether or not Mary was a virgin. What do I care about Mary being a virgin?

Cecil Williams

People cannot stand the saddest truth I know about the very nature of reading and writing imaginative literature, which is that poetry does not teach us how to talk to other people: it teaches us how to talk to ourselves. What I'm desperately trying to do is to get students to talk to themselves as though they are indeed themselves, and not someone else.

Harold Bloom

The real controversy comes with anthropologists - not all, but some - who see themselves as studying culture, and they then see culture from the perspective of humans, which is what they study. From their perspective, or, from some of their perspectives, it's sort of heresy to even talk about culture in any other animal. Others would say, "Yeah, you can talk about it, but our definitions of culture are so utterly different from yours and include things like values, and so on, which you've never shown to exist in any of these other creatures."

Hal Whitehead

I care so deeply about this matter that I'm willing to take on the legal penalties, to sit in this prison cell, to sacrifice my freedom, in order to show you how deeply I care. Because when you see the depth of my concern, and how civil I am in going about this, you're bound to change your mind about me, to abandon your rigid, unjust position, and to let me help you see the truth of my cause.