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Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Inanimate

Inanimate Quotes (7 quotes)

Astronomy affords the most extensive example of the connection of physical sciences. In it are combined the sciences of number and quantity, or rest and motion. In it we perceive the operation of a force which is mixed up with everything that exists in the heavens or on earth; which pervades every atom, rules the motion of animate and inanimate beings, and is a sensible in the descent of the rain-drop as in the falls of Niagara; in the weight of the air, as in the periods of the moon.
— Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1858), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (75)  |  Animate (2)  |  Astronomy (98)  |  Atom (157)  |  Being (30)  |  Combination (34)  |  Connection (32)  |  Descent (7)  |  Earth (210)  |  Everything (27)  |  Example (15)  |  Existence (126)  |  Force (60)  |  Heaven (51)  |  Mix (4)  |  Moon (73)  |  Motion (58)  |  Motion (58)  |  Niagara (2)  |  Number (74)  |  Operation (47)  |  Perception (19)  |  Period (18)  |  Physical Science (28)  |  Quantity (20)  |  Rest (25)  |  Rule (44)  |  Sensible (9)  |  Weight (35)

I know that certain minds would regard as audacious the idea of relating the laws which preside over the play of our organs to those laws which govern inanimate bodies; but, although novel, this truth is none the less incontestable. To hold that the phenomena of life are entirely distinct from the general phenomena of nature is to commit a grave error, it is to oppose the continued progress of science.
— François Magendie
Leçons sur les Phenomenes Physiques de la Vie (1836-38), Vol. 1, 6. Trans. J. M. D. Olmsted, François Magendie (1944), 203.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (78)  |  Distinct (10)  |  Error (141)  |  Idea (180)  |  Law (243)  |  Life (379)  |  Mind (236)  |  Nature (475)  |  Novelty (8)  |  Opposition (19)  |  Organ (36)  |  Phenomenon (100)  |  Progress (180)  |  Regard (14)  |  Relationship (29)  |  Truth (399)

Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three categories—those that don't work, those that break down, and those that get lost. The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him, and the three major classifications are based on the method each object uses to achieve its purpose
— Russell Wayne Baker
'Observer: The Plot Against People', New York Times (18 Jun 1968), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (59)  |  Break (15)  |  Classification (53)  |  Defeat (5)  |  Goal (27)  |  Lost (9)  |  Man (239)  |  Object (38)  |  Purpose (57)  |  Resist (3)  |  Work (152)

Most classifications, whether of inanimate objects or of organisms, are hierarchical. There are 'higher' and 'lower' categories, there are higher and lower ranks. What is usually overlooked is that the use of the term 'hierarchy' is ambiguous, and that two fundamentally different kinds of arrangements have been designated as hierarchical. A hierarchy can be either exclusive or inclusive. Military ranks from private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, up to general are a typical example of an exclusive hierarchy. A lower rank is not a subdivision of a higher rank; thus, lieutenants are not a subdivision of captains. The scala naturae, which so strongly dominated thinking from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, is another good illustration of an exclusive hierarchy. Each level of perfection was considered an advance (or degradation) from the next lower (or higher) level in the hierarchy, but did not include it.
— Ernst Mayr
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance (1982), 205-6.
Science quotes on:  |  Advance (37)  |  Ambiguity (6)  |  Arrangement (21)  |  Classification (53)  |  Degradation (6)  |  Different (8)  |  Exclusive (3)  |  Fundamental (46)  |  Hierarchy (4)  |  Level (14)  |  Military (5)  |  Object (38)  |  Organism (58)  |  Perfection (35)  |  Rank (11)  |  Thinking (140)

Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects.
— Frederick Soddy
In Matter and Energy (1912), 9-10.
Science quotes on:  |  Application (56)  |  Aspect (9)  |  Community (21)  |  Complete (9)  |  Complication (12)  |  Distinction (15)  |  Energy (89)  |  Enjoyment (9)  |  Individual (45)  |  Knowledge (593)  |  Law (243)  |  Legitimacy (2)  |  Life (379)  |  Matter (122)  |  Organism (58)  |  Phenomenon (100)  |  Physical (19)  |  Physical Science (28)  |  Presentation (8)  |  Result (103)  |  Science (754)  |  Separation (23)

Scientists have been struck by the fact that things that break down virtually never get lost, while things that get lost hardly ever break down.
— Russell Wayne Baker
'Why on Earth Are We There? Because It's Impossible', New York Times (21 Jul 1969), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Break (15)  |  Fact (277)  |  Lost (9)  |  Object (38)  |  Scientist (186)

We may say that life has borrowed from inanimate processes the same mechanism used in producing these striking structures that are crystals.
— Linus Pauling
‘The Nature of Forces between Large Molecules of Biological Interest’, Nature (1948), 161, 708.
Science quotes on:  |  Borrowing (4)  |  Crystal (20)  |  Life (379)  |  Mechanism (20)  |  Process (79)  |  Production (59)  |  Structure (84)



Carl Sagan Thumbnail At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. -- Carl Sagan

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