John Herschel Quotes about Nature

To the natural philosopher, there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons.

To the natural philosopher, there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of Nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons.

John Herschel

Nature, Lessons, May

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, William Whewell, George Henry Lewes, Hermann von Helmholz, James Clerk Maxwell (1996). “The Origins of Modern Philosophy of Science, 1830-1914: Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”

It can hardly be pressed forcibly enough on the attention of the student of nature, that there is scarcely any natural phenomenon which can be fully and completely explained, in all its circumstances, without a union of several, perhaps of all, the sciences.

John Herschel

Nature, Science, Attention

Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1851). “Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”, p.174

[When nature appears complicated:] The moment we contemplate it as it is, and attain a position from which we can take a commanding view, though but of a small part of its plan, we never fail to recognize that sublime simplicity on which the mind rests satisfied that it has attained the truth.

John Herschel

Nature, Truth, Science

...Nature builds up her refined and invisible architecture, with a delicacy eluding our conception, yet with a symmetry and beauty which we are never weary of admiring.

John Herschel

Nature, Delicacy, Architecture

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, William Whewell, George Henry Lewes, Hermann von Helmholz, James Clerk Maxwell (1996). “The Origins of Modern Philosophy of Science, 1830-1914: Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy”