Top 66 quotes by James Clerk Maxwell

Advertisements

James Clerk Maxwell quote In Science, it is when we t...

In Science, it is when we take some interest in the great discoverers and their lives that it becomes endurable, and only when we begin to trace the development of ideas that it becomes fascinating.
James Clerk Maxwell

Ideas , Discovery , Science

119

James Clerk Maxwell quote I have looked into most phi...

I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.
James Clerk Maxwell

Philosophical , Found , Most Philosophical

106

The true logic of this world is in the calculus of probabilities.
James Clerk Maxwell

World , Science , Logic

Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science.
James Clerk Maxwell

"Dr. Stuart Firestein's Scientific Method Speech on Question Propagation" by Alyson Wyers, www.trendhunter.com. October 27, 2013. Source

Real , Ignorance , Conscious

In every branch of knowledge the progress is proportional to the amount of facts on which to build, and therefore to the facility of obtaining data.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.209, CUP Archive

Branches , Progress , Data

The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1990). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862”, p.383, CUP Archive

Mind , Law , Matter

I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (2002). “The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell:”, p.188, Cambridge University Press

Thinking , Men , Christian

The student who uses home made apparatus, which is always going wrong, often learns more than one who has the use of carefully adjusted instruments, to which he is apt to trust and which he dares not take to pieces.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell, Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G. Brush, C. W. Francis Everitt (1986). “Maxwell on Molecules and Gases”, p.113, MIT Press

Home , Pieces , Use

Faraday is, and must always remain, the father of that enlarged science of electromagnetism.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1890). “Scientific Papers”

Father , Electromagnetism

At quite uncertain times and places, The atoms left their heavenly path, And by fortuitous embraces, Engendered all that being hath. And though they seem to cling together, And form 'associations' here, Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether, And through the depths of space career.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell, “Molecular Evolution”

Science , Careers , Space

In the heavens we discover [stars] by their light, and by their light alone ... the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds ... that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
James Clerk Maxwell

Light , Science , Stars

All the mathematical sciences are founded on the relations between physical laws and laws of numbers.
James Clerk Maxwell

Math , Numbers , Education

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.328, Courier Corporation

Ideas , May , Language

It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell (1954). “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism”, p.11, Courier Corporation

Students , Science , Physics

Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created.
James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell, W. D. Niven (2003). “The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell”, p.376, Courier Corporation

Thinking , Self , Atheism

The chief philosophical value of physics is that it gives the mind something distinct to lay hold of, which, if you don't, Nature at once tells you you are wrong.
James Clerk Maxwell

Mind , Philosophical , Giving