Carolus Linnaeus Quotes

A practical botanist will distinguish at the first glance the plant of the different quarters of the globe and yet will be at a loss to tell by what marks he detects them. ~ Carolus Linnaeus

Nature does not proceed by leaps and bounds. ~ Carolus Linnaeus

The imperialist found it useful to incorporate the credible and seemingly unimpeachable wisdom of science to create a racial classification to be used in the appropriation and organization of lesser cultures. The works of Carolus Linnaeus, Georges Buffon, and Georges Cuvier, organized races in terms of a civilized us and a paradigmatic other. The other was uncivilized, barbaric, and wholly lower than the advanced races of Europe. This paradigm of imaginatively constructing a world predicated upon race was grounded in science, and expressed as philosophical axioms by John Locke and David Hume, offered compelling justification that Europe always ought to rule non-Europeans. This doctrine of cultural superiority had a direct bearing on Zionist practice and vision in Palestine.
A civilized man, it was believed, could cultivate the land because it meant something to him; on it, accordingly, he produced useful arts and crafts, he created, he accomplished, he built. For uncivilized people, land was either farmed badly or it was left to rot. This was

imperialism as theory and colonialism was the practice of changing the uselessly unoccupied territories of the world into useful new versions of Europe. It was this epistemic framework that shaped and informed Zionist attitudes towards the Arab Palestinian natives. This is the intellectual background that Zionism emerged from. Zionism saw Palestine through the same prism as the European did, as an empty territory parado ~ R.F. Georgy

Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle. ~ Charles Darwin

Linnaeus had it constantly in mind: 'The closer we get to know the creatures around us, the clearer is the understanding we obtain of the chain of nature, and its harmony and system'. ~ Sten Lindroth

It is not God, but people themselves who shorten their lives by not keeping physically fit. ~ Carl Linnaeus

Yet man does recognise himself [as an animal]. But I ask you and the whole world for a generic differentia between man and ape which conforms to the principles of natural history, I certainly know of none ... If I were to call man ape or vice versa, I should bring down all the theologians on my head. But perhaps I should still do it according to the rules of science. ~ Carl Linnaeus

The language of mathematics differs from that of everyday life, because it is essentially a rationally planned language. The languages of size have no place for private sentiment, either of the individual or of the nation. They are international languages like the binomial nomenclature of natural history. In dealing with the immense complexity of his social life man has not yet begun to apply inventiveness to the rational planning of ordinary language when describing different kinds of institutions and human behavior. The language of everyday life is clogged with sentiment, and the science of human nature has not advanced so far that we can describe individual sentiment in a clear way. So constructive thought about human society is hampered by the same conservatism as embarrassed the earlier naturalists. Nowadays people do not differ about what sort of animal is meant by Cimex or Pediculus, because these words are used only by people who use them in one way. They still can and often do mean a lot of different things when they say that a mattress is infested with bugs or lice. The study of a man's social life has not yet brought forth a Linnaeus. So an argument about the 'withering away of the State' may disclose a difference about the use of the dictionary when no real difference about the use of the policeman is involved. Curiously enough, people who are most sensible about the need for planning other social amenities in a reasonable way are often slow to see the need for cr ~ Lancelot Hogben

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars. ~ Carl Linnaeus

Nature's economy shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, but ours is secondary. An economist without knowledge of nature is therefore like a physicist without knowledge of mathematics. ~ Carl Linnaeus

The names of the plants ought to be stable [certa], consequently they should be given to stable genera. ~ Carl Linnaeus

A herbarium is better than any illustration; every botanist should make one. ~ Carl Linnaeus

The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves; this notion consists in having a true idea of the objects; objects are distinguished and known by classifying them methodically and giving them appropriate names. Therefore, classification and name-giving will be the foundation of our science. ~ Carl Linnaeus

If you do not know the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost, too. ~ Carl Linnaeus

The air of caricature never fails to show itself in the products of reason applied relentlessly and without correction. The observation of clinical facts would seem to be a pursuit of the physician as harmless as it is indispensable. [But] it seemed irresistibly rational to certain minds that diseases should be as fully classifiable as are beetles and butterflies. This doctrine ... bore perhaps its richest fruit in the hands of Boissier de Sauvauges. In his Nosologia Methodica published in 1768 ... this Linnaeus of the bedside grouped diseases into ten classes, 295 genera, and 2400 species. ~ Wilfred Trotter

I live to hold communion With all that is divine, To feel there is a union Twixt Natures heart and mine. ~ George Linnaeus Banks

Of course to one so modern as I am, `Enfant de mon siècle,' merely to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens, and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes, so that all the air shall be Arabia for me. Linnaeus fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the tawny aromatic brooms of the common furze; and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not answer. Like Gautier, I have always been one of those 'pour qui le monde visible existe. ~ Oscar Wilde

I live to hail that season by gifted one foretold, when men shall live by reason, and not alone by gold. ~ George Linnaeus Banks

I cannot separate the aesthetic pleasure of seeing a butterfly and the scientific pleasure of knowing what it is. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal to a limited faculty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnaeus or Cavendish or Cuvier who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us participate in their life; it is Shakspeare [sic] ... Wordsworth ... Keats ... Chateaubriand ... Senancour. ~ Matthew Arnold

Rarely has a man been more comfortable with his own greatness. He spent much of his leisure time penning long and flattering portraits of himself, declaring that there had never 'been a greater botanist or zoologist', and that his system of classification was 'the greatest achievement in the realm of science'. Modestly, he suggested that his gravestone should bear the inscription Princeps Botanicorum, 'Prince of Botanists'. It was never wise to question his generous self-assessments. Those who did so were apt to find they had weeds named after them. ~ Bill Bryson

The plant kingdom covers the entire earth, offering our senses great pleasure and the delights of summer. ~ Carl Linnaeus

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. ~ Carl Linnaeus

While we're at it, why don't we add a third emotion to this list: lust. You are probably unaware that Linnaeus lumped the tomato into the same genus as the potato, a food with a reputation for its widespread availability and easy satisfaction of oral needs. ~ Benson Bruno

Weed, are you familiar with the work of Carl Linnaeus? His Systema Naturae describes a classification system for all growing things."
Weed's eyes dart everywhere, probing every corner. "Unless he visited the madhouse, I never met him," he replies. ~ Maryrose Wood

As one sits here in summertime and listens to the cuckoo and all the other bird songs, the crackling and buzzing of insects, as one gazes at the shining colors of flowers, doth one become dumbstruck before the Kingdom of the Creator. ~ Carl Linnaeus

There are as many species as the infinite being created diverse forms in the beginning, which, following the laws of generation, produced many others, but always similar to them: therefore there are as many species as we have different structures before us today. ~ Carl Linnaeus

I live for those who love me, for those who know me true; for the heaven that smiles above me and awaits my spirit too. For the cause that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that I can do. ~ George Linnaeus Banks

I hope you will understand it! Linnaeus says the plants get married and make new plant families, and then those families intermarry and create the species, and then the species intermarry and produce the varieties. You can see why Father would object."
"I suppose," says Weed. "But at least they were all legally wed. ~ Maryrose Wood

Know thyself! This is the source of all wisdom, said the great thinkers of the past, and the sentence was written in golden letters on the temple of the gods. To know himself, Linnaeus declared to be the essential indisputable distinction of man above all other creatures. I know, indeed, in study nothing more worthy of free and thoughtful man than the study of himself. For if we look for the purpose of our existence, we cannot possibly find it outside ourselves. We are here for our own sake. ~ Karl Ernst Von Baer

When all the thoughts are concerning one thing and the person loses interest in other things, the melancholy begins. ~ Carl Linnaeus

When the spiritual light is concentrated in the brain, everything else must be sinking in the dark. ~ Carl Linnaeus

Linnea ... A plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space - from Linnaeus who resembles it. ~ Carl Linnaeus

Linnaeus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Natural bodies are divided into three kingdomes of nature: viz. the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Minerals grow, Plants grow and live, Animals grow, live, and have feeling. ~ Carl Linnaeus

This drink has a magical power. It strengthens the weak, and revives those who have fainted. Those tired after work and physical activity can return their life forces by this drink much sooner than by nourishment ... It works as a diuretic, an appetizer, an antitoxin. ~ Carl Linnaeus

To live by medicine is to live horribly. ~ Carl Linnaeus