Georges Cuvier quotes

Georges Cuvier was a French naturalist and paleontologist, widely recognized as the founding figure of comparative anatomy and paleontology. His work laid the foundation for the scientific study of extinct animals and the concept of catastrophism in earth history. He profoundly influenced biological sciences and remains a central figure in natural history. Here are 15 of his quotes:

It is evident that one cannot say anything demonstrable about the problem before having resolved these preliminary questions, and yet we hardly possess the necessary information to solve some of them.

Georges Cuvier

To spread healthy ideas among even the lowest classes of people, to remove men from the influence of prejudice and passion, to make reason the arbiter and supreme guide of public opinion; that is the essential goal of the sciences; that is how science will contribute to the advancement of civilization, and that is what deserves protection of governments who want to insure the stability of their power.

Georges Cuvier

Hence the same instant which killed the animals froze the country where they lived. This event was sudden, instantaneous, without any gradual development.

Georges Cuvier

Thus it cannot be denied that the masses which today form our highest mountains were originally in a liquid state; for a long time they were covered by waters which did not sustain any life.

Georges Cuvier

Moreover, it thus follows that not a great deal of time was needed for the large animals of the three major parts of the world to become known to the people who spent time on the coasts of those regions.

Georges Cuvier

The works which this man leaves behind him occupy a few pages only; their importance is not greatly superior to their extent.

Georges Cuvier

The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables.

Georges Cuvier

My object will be, first, to show by what connections the history of the fossil bones of land animals is linked to the theory of the earth and why they have a particular importance in this respect.

Georges Cuvier

The appearance of the bones of quadrupeds, especially those of complete bodies in the strata, tells us either that the layer itself which carries them was in earlier times dry land or that dry land was at least formed in the immediate area.

Georges Cuvier

The traces of upheavals become more impressive when one moves a little higher, when one gets even closer to the foot of the great mountain ranges. There are still plenty of shell layers. We notice them, even thicker and more solid ones.

Georges Cuvier

The lowest and most level land areas show us, especially when we dig there to very great depths, nothing but horizontal layers of material more or less varied, which almost all contain innumerable products of the sea.

Georges Cuvier

But the revolutions and changes which are responsible for the present state of the earth are not limited to the upsetting of the ancient strata and to the ebbing of the sea after the formations of new layers.

Georges Cuvier

The older the layers, the more each of them is uniform over a great extent; the newer the layers, the more they are limited and subject to variation within small distances.

Georges Cuvier