The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.
Louis AgassizRead
The time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Scientific knowledge should be accessible to everyone, not just a select few.
In this quote, Louis Agassiz emphasizes the importance of democratizing scientific knowledge. He suggests that the truths discovered through science should no longer be confined to an elite group, but instead should be integrated into the everyday lives of people, highlighting the crucial role of science in the collective progress of society.
Themes
ScienceKnowledgeEducationAccessibilityDemocratizationTruth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of science education in schools.
More from Louis Agassiz
All quotes βI have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,-this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a like nature.
Louis AgassizRead
Select such subjects that your pupils cannot walk out without seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them provided with the specimens about which you speak. If you can find nothing better, take a house-fly or a cricket, and let each one hold a specimen and examine it as you talk.
Louis AgassizRead
The eye of the trilobite tells us that the sun shone on the old beach where he lived; for there is nothing in nature without a purpose, and when so complicated an organ was made to receive the light, there must have been light to enter it.
Louis AgassizRead
The surface of the earth is not simply a stage on which the thousands of present and past inhabitants played their parts in turn. There are much more intimate relations between the earth and the living organisms which populated it, and it may even be demonstrated that the earth was developed because of them.
Louis AgassizRead
The study of Nature is intercourse with the highest mind. You should never trifle with Nature. At her lowest her works are the works of the highest powers, the highest something in the universe, in whichever way we look at it... This is the charm of Study from Nature itself; she brings us back to absolute truth wherever we wander.
Louis AgassizRead
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