Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon Quotes & Sayings

Although the works of the Creator may be in themselves all equally perfect, the animal is, as I see it, the most complete work of nature, and man is her masterpiece. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

All the work of the crystallographers serves only to demonstrate that there is only variety everywhere where they suppose uniformity ... that in nature there is nothing absolute, nothing perfectly regular. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The style is the man himself — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The sublime can only be found in the great subjects. Poetry, history and philosophy all have the same object, and a very great object - Man and Nature. Philosophy describes and depicts Nature. Poetry paints and embellishes it. It also paints men, it aggrandizes them, it exaggerates them, it creates heroes and gods. History only depicts man, and paints him such as he is. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Style supposes the reunion and the exercise of all the intellectual faculties. The style is the man. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling, and good expression; it is having wit, soul, and taste, all together. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

For the little that one has reflected on the origin of our knowledge, it is easy to perceive that we can acquire it only by means of comparison. That which is absolutely incomparable is wholly incomprehensible. God is the only example that we could give here. He cannot be comprehended, because he cannot be compared. But all which is susceptible of comparison, everything that we can perceive by different aspects, all that we can consider relatively, can always be judged according to our knowledge. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

To be and to think are one and the same for us. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The great workman of nature is time. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The human mind cannot create anything. It produces nothing until having been fertilized by experience and meditation; its acquisitions are the germs of its production. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century. — Ernst W. Mayr

Nature is the system of laws established by the Creator for the existence of things and for the succession of creatures. Nature is not a thing, because this thing would be everything. Nature is not a creature, because this creature would be God. But one can consider it as an immense vital power, which encompasses all, which animates all, and which, subordinated to the power of the first Being, has begun to act only by his order, and still acts only by his concourse or consent ... Time, space and matter are its means, the universe its object, motion and life its goal. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race. — Thomas Jefferson

Genius is simply patience carried to the extreme. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Only well-written works will descend to posterity. Fulness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are no pledge of immortality, for they may be employed by more skilful hands; they are outside the man; the style is the man himself. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The dog has no ambition, no self-interest, no desire for vengeance, no fear other than that of displeasing. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Style is the essence of man — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Let us investigate more closely this property common to animal and plant, this power of producing its likeness, this chain of successive existences of individuals, which constitutes the real existence of the species. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

The discoveries that one can make with the microscope amount to very little, for one sees with the mind's eye and without the microscope the real existence of all these little beings. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

There is nothing good in love but the physical part. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Let us suppose, that the Old and New worlds were formerly but one continent, and that, by a violent earthquake, the ancient Atalantis [sic] of Plato was sunk ... The sea would necessarily rush in from all quarters, and form what is now called the Atlantic ocean. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Only those works which are well-written will pass to posterity: the amount of knowledge, the uniqueness of the facts, even the novelty of the discoveries are no guarantees of immortality ... These things are exterior to a man but style is the man himself. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

I am convinced, by repeated observation, that marbles, lime-stones, chalks, marls, clays, sand, and almost all terrestrial substances, wherever situated, are full of shells and other spoils of the ocean. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

Ignorance produced genera, and science produced, and will continue to produce, proper names; nor of these shall we be afraid to increase the number, whenever we shall have occasion to denote different species. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon

In Ireland, there are the same fossils, the same shells and the same sea bodies, as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe. — Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte De Buffon