Josiah Willard Gibbs Quotes

Unassuming in manner, genial and kindly in his intercourse with his fellow-men, never showing impatience or irritation, devoid of personal ambition of the baser sort or of the slightest desire to exalt himself ... In the minds of those who knew him, the greatness of his intellectual achievements will never overshadow the beauty and dignity of his life.
[H.A. Burnstead's comments on the life of esteemed scientist J. Willard Gibbs] ~ Henry Andrews Bumstead

Only one man lived who could understand Gibbs's papers. That was Maxwell, and now he is dead. ~ Muriel Rukeyser

In the last generation, this country produced one of the most eminent men of science in the whole world. His name was quite unknown among us while he lived, and it is still unknown. Yet I may say without too great exaggeration that when I heard it mentioned in a professional assembly in the Netherlands two years ago, everybody got down under the table and touched their foreheads to the floor. His name was Josiah Willard Gibbs. ~ Albert Jay Nock

Willard Gibbs is the type of the imagination at work in the world. His story is that of an opening up which has had its effect on our lives and our thinking; and, it seems to me, it is the emblem of the naked imagination - which is called abstract and impractical, but whose discoveries can be used by anyone who is interested, in whatever 'field' - an imagination which for me, more than that of any other figure in American thought, any poet, or political, or religious figure, stands for imagination at its essential points. ~ Muriel Rukeyser

Mathematics is a language ~ J. Willard Gibbs

We avoid the gravest difficulties when, giving up the attempt to frame hypotheses concerning the constitution of matter, we pursue statistical inquiries as a branch of rational mechanics. ~ J. Willard Gibbs

The concept of an independent system is a pure creation of the imagination. For no material system is or can ever be perfectly isolated from the rest of the world. Nevertheless it completes the mathematician's "blank form of a universe" without which his investigations are impossible. It enables him to introduce into his geometrical space, not only masses and configurations, but also physical structure and chemical composition. Just as Newton first conclusively showed that this is a world of masses, so Willard Gibbs first revealed it as a world of systems. ~ Lawrence Joseph Henderson

Willard Gibbs did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

Only people who go to bed early believe in happy endings. We night owls understand that happiness does not dwell in finales. It resides in anticipation, in revelry, and in worn-out welcomes. Endings are always sad. ~ Josiah Bancroft

Only those parts of the collective consciousness with strong, non-conflicting inner visions change the physical world. They simply will things into existence. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs

If one machine could do the work of so many men, what would be left for those men to do? In a thousand years, when the last human work was taken over by an automatic engine, would it conclude the liberation or the eslavement of the race? ~ Josiah Bancroft

Remember this... No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of stress can alter the future, so relax an live each day as it comes. ~ Karen Gibbs

Accidents at power plants are bad enough. But a leak from a bioreactor could be worse, since bacteria can learn new tricks when you're not looking. ~ Nancy Gibbs

People need to stand up hold hands, talk about alternatives. Alternatives, alternatives, alternatives. And people united will never, ever be defeated. ~ Lois Gibbs

You know it never ceases to amaze me how people twist your words.I used to et it bother me that I was so misunderstood, but now I realise, I can tell a lot about people by what they CHOOSE to see in me ~ Karen Gibbs

Why doesn't God just force us to do the things he knows to be right? It is because that would lose precisely that which he has intended in our creation: freely chosen character. ~ Dallas Willard

The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low. ~ Dallas Willard

It is possible to have the administration of the sacraments and the preaching of the Word of God and to have it be simply a human exercise. ~ Dallas Willard

STAY POSITIVE (your body hears everything you think) ~ Karen Gibbs

Churches are not the kingdom of God, but are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of presence of the kingdom among us. They are 'societies' of Jesus. ~ Dallas Willard

P.S. Murders kill for pleasure.
Vampires kill to survive. ~ Abigail Gibbs

I'm like a mad professor, but without the spiky hair. ~ Willard Wigan

I think the president's quite comfortable being the underdog. I think he's happy to run this race from - as if he were behind the whole time. ~ Robert Gibbs

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. ~ William Gibbs McAdoo

Learning starts with failure. ~ Josiah Bancroft

And so we have the result noted: the resources of God's kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. To counteract this we must develop a straightforward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life now under God's rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. In this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn from him how to live our lives as he would live them if he were we. We can enter his eternal kind of life now. ~ Dallas Willard

People who love one another can be silent together.12 ~ Dallas Willard

Emma Willard told the legislature that the education of women "has been too exclusively directed to fit them for displaying to advantage the charms of youth and beauty" The problem, she said, was that "the taste of men, whatever it might happen to be, has made into a standard for the formation of the female character." Reason and religion teach us, she said, that "we too are primary existences ... not the satellites of men. ~ Howard Zinn

Meeting important emotional needs creates the feeling of love, but thoughtfulness keeps it alive. ~ Willard F. Harley

The rich are richer, and the poor are poorer, in the city than elsewhere; and, as a rule, the greater are the riches of the rich and the poverty of the poor. ~ Josiah Strong

I study my competition for at least an hour a day. I get on the internet, look at what they doing, then I look at ways to defeat them. ~ Freddie Gibbs

Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it. It has the form, figuratively speaking, of a closed curve in space. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine

The skin of moss / holds the footprints of / star-footed birds. ~ Nancy Willard

It is much more enjoyable to love success than to hate failure. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs

Yes, I hear that people who suffer from brain damage are quite happy. That's what I always wanted for you, Edith: for you to be happy, no matter how many blows to the head it takes. ~ Josiah Bancroft

The only way to predict if there's a cloud on your horizon due to glaucoma is to get tested. No matter what the diagnosis, the forecast is for clear vision in the years ahead. ~ Willard Scott

Our house is quiet, small and plain,
and yet its rooms run far and wide.
A hundred pencils, swift as rain,
writing on sheets of beaten gold
would not be quick enough to hold
the strange adventures
shadows hide ... ~ Nancy Willard

Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine

Take care with the words you speak, it's best to keep them sweet..... because you never know when you might have to eat them! ~ Karen Gibbs

If the law is malleable, Mr. Senlin, if it bends and conforms to man, then man will become resolute in his flaws. The law exists to give shape to man's ideals. When you think about it, doesn't mercy serve the wicked at the expense of the law? ~ Josiah Bancroft

Photographer James Nachtwey has spent his professional life in the places people most want to avoid: war zones and refugee camps, the city flattened by an earthquake, the village swallowed by a flood, the farm hollowed out by famine. ~ Nancy Gibbs

Accordingly, I believe the most adequate description of prayer is simply, "Talking to God about what we are doing together." That immediately focuses the activity where we are but at the same time drives the egotism out of it. Requests will naturally be made in the course of this conversational walk. Prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray. ~ Dallas Willard

Right now, doctors can test for about 2,500 medical conditions, but they only can treat about 500 of those. So what do you do with the knowledge about the others? ~ Nancy Gibbs

New Testament passages make plain that this kingdom is not something to be "accepted" now and enjoyed later, but something to be entered now (Matt. 5:20; 18:3; John 3:3, 5). It is something that already has flesh-and-blood citizens (John 18:36; Phil. 3:20) who have been transformed into it (Col. 1:13) and are fellow workers in it (Col. 4:11). ~ Dallas Willard