QuoteProject
Love has been taken away from the poets, and has been brought within the domain of true science. It may prove to be one of the great cosmic elementary forces. When the atom of hydrogen draws the atom of chlorine towards it to form the perfected molecule of hydrochloric acid, the force which it exerts may be intrinsically similar to that which draws me to you. Attraction and repulsion appear to be the primary forces. This is attraction.
Arthur Conan Doyle
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote connects the scientific understanding of attraction to human emotions, particularly love.

Arthur Conan Doyle reflects on the notion that love, traditionally a poetic and emotional concept, has now been redefined within the framework of science. He draws a parallel between the physical forces that govern atomic interactions and the emotional forces that draw individuals to one another, suggesting that love may indeed be a fundamental force in the universe akin to atomic attraction.

Themes

LoveAttractionScienceEmotionForces

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the intersection of science and the arts, you might say: 'As Arthur Conan Doyle poetically observed, our feelings of love operate under the same powerful forces that govern the universe.'

More from Arthur Conan Doyle

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead

Similar quotes

The biggest of all differences in this world is between the ones that had or have pleasure in love and those that haven't and hadn't any pleasure in love, but just watched with sick envy.
Tennessee WilliamsRead
God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.
Desmond TutuRead
He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.
Sherman AlexieRead
But you were something more than young and sweet And fair, - and the long year remembers you.
Edna St. Vincent MillayRead
That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand.
Stephen FryRead
After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love--I have found you.
Charlotte BronteRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.