Jean Baptiste Biot Quotes

Biot, who assisted Laplace in revising it [The Mécanique Céleste] for the press, says that Laplace himself was frequently unable to recover the details in the chain of reasoning, and if satisfied that the conclusions were correct, he was content to insert the constantly recurring formula, 'Il est àisé avoir' [it is easy to see]. ~ W.W. Rouse Ball

My son, all my life I have loved this science so deeply that I can now hear my heart beat for joy.

{Commenting about Louis Pasteur's accomplishment of separating two asymmetric forms of tartaric acid crystals.} ~ Jean-Baptiste Biot

The first step to be taken, is to study carefully the fundamental phenomenon above described, and to examine all the various circumstances under which it presents itself. ~ Jean-Baptiste Biot

When one day Lagrange took out of his pocket a paper which he read at the Académe, and which contained a demonstration of the famous Postulatum of Euclid, relative to the theory of parallels. This demonstration rested on an obvious paralogism, which appeared as such to everybody; and probably Lagrange also recognised it such during his lecture. For, when he had finished, he put the paper back in his pocket, and spoke no more of it. A moment of universal silence followed, and one passed immediately to other concerns. ~ Jean-Baptiste Biot

How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] ... Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals. ~ Clifford A. Truesdell

Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other begins. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

Youth is life's beautiful moment. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

For Christians, the first of books is the Gospel and the Rosary is actually the abridgement of the Gospel. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Nothing is achieved without solitude. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor". ~ Albert Camus

Law has been unjustly charged with the whole blame of the calamities resulting from the scheme that bears his name. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

I actually like getting up to blue skies. ~ Marianne Jean-Baptiste

To have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

As to the lawful pleasures of the mind, the heart, or the senses, indulge in them with gratitude and moderation, drawing up sometimes in order to punish yourself, without waiting to be forced to do so by necessity. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

As I reach the grand foyer, I see Jean-Baptiste and Gaspard step through the front door.
"You're here!" I cry.
"I had planned on taking a couple more hours to rest up," Gaspard explains with a grin, "however, we received this almost indecipherable text message on our mobile telephone ... "
Jean-Baptiste holds up his cell phone like it's a piece of alien machinery. "And I quote, 'Dudes, it's going down now. Get your sorry asses over here stat.' With such an eloquent request, how could we resist?" he remarks drily. But there is a ghost of a smile at the edge of his lips, and I know that he and Gaspard wouldn't miss this for anything in the world. ~ Amy Plum

The great men of antiquity were poor. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

Nothing wounds a friend like a want of confidence. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

I have seen many phases of life; I have moved in imperial circles, I have been a Minister of State; but if I had to live my life again, I would always remain in my laboratory, for the greatest joy of my life has been to accomplish original scientific work, and, next to that, to lecture to a set of intelligent students. ~ Jean-Baptiste Dumas

Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

I love the mountains, the light. I'm a real light junkie. ~ Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Agreeable advice is seldom useful advice. ~ Jean Baptiste Massillon

Slander is perhaps the only vice which no circumstance can palliate, as well as being one which we are most ingenious in concealing from ourselves. ~ Jean Baptiste Massillon

Bossuet has a sentence which is beyond the comprehension of an apostle who does not realize what must be the soul of his apostolate. It runs: "When God desires a work to be wholly from His hand, he reduces all to impotence and nothingness, and then He acts." Nothing wounds God so much as pride. ~ Jean-Baptiste Chautard

No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

A really sublime moment is that when the last ray of light breaks in upon the soul, and marshals into a single group all the scattered disconnected truths there. There is such a vast difference between the moment which follows, and the moment which precedes this one, between what we were before, and what we are after, that the word grace has been invented to convey the idea of this magic stroke, of this light from on high. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

I see myself as British, and I want to be celebrated by Britain. ~ Marianne Jean-Baptiste

I want to work, so I'm going where the work is. ~ Marianne Jean-Baptiste

According to the concept of transformational evolution, first clearly articulated by Lamarck, evolution consists of the gradual transformation of organisms from one condition of existence to another. ~ Ernst W. Mayr

If one individual, or one class, can call in the aid of authority to ward off the effects of competition, it acquires a privilege and at the cost of the whole community; it can make sure of profits not altogether due to the productive services rendered, but composed in part of an actual tax upon consumers for its private profit' which tax it commonly shares with the authority that thus unjustly lent its support. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

The manner in which things exist and take place, constitutes what is called the nature of things; and a careful observation of the nature of things is the sole foundation of all truth. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say

Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin by making them love their country. ~ Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Freedoms and apprenticeships are likewise expedients of police,not of that wholesome branch of police, whose object is the maintenance of the public and private security, and which is neither costly nor vexatious; but of that sort of police which bad governments employ to preserve or extend their personal authority at any expense. ~ Jean-Baptiste Say