Oliver Lodge quotes

Oliver Lodge was an English physicist and inventor noted for his pioneering work in wireless telegraphy and the study of electromagnetism. His experiments helped lay the groundwork for radio technology and advancements in electrical science. He also explored the relationship between science and spiritualism, seeking connections between the physical and non-physical worlds. Here are 34 of his quotes:

Any person without invincible prejudice who had the same experience would come to the same broad conclusion, viz., that things hitherto held impossible do actually occur.

Oliver Lodge

Basing my conclusions on experience I am absolutely convinced not only of survival but of demonstrated survival, demonstrated by occasional interaction with matter in such a way as to produce physical results.

Oliver Lodge

We know that communication must be hampered, and its form largely determined, by the unconscious but inevitable influence of a transmitting mechanism, whether that be of a merely mechanical or of a physiological character.

Oliver Lodge

Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is.

Oliver Lodge

Death is not extinction. Neither the soul nor the body is extinguished or put out of existence.

Oliver Lodge

The old series of sittings with Mrs. Piper convinced me of survival for reasons which I should find it hard to formulate in any strict fashion, but that was their distinct effect.

Oliver Lodge

The amount of sophistication varies according to the quality of the medium, and to the state of the same medium at different times; it must be attributed in the best cases physiologically to the medium, intellectually to the control.

Oliver Lodge

The properties which differentiate living matter from any kind of inorganic imitation may be instinctively felt, but can hardly be formulated without expert knowledge.

Oliver Lodge

The hypothesis of surviving intelligence and personality - not only surviving but anxious and able with difficulty to communicate - is the simplest and most straightforward and the only one that fits all the facts.

Oliver Lodge

In other cases, when the medium becomes entranced, the demonstration of a communicator's separate intelligence may become stronger and the sophistication less.

Oliver Lodge

I am as convinced of continued existence, on the other side of death, as I am of existence here.

Oliver Lodge

Our memories are thronged with the past; our anticipations range over the future; and it is in the past and the future that we really live. It is so even with the higher animals: they too order their lives by memory and anticipation.

Oliver Lodge

Every great revelation is likely to have been foreshadowed in more or less imperfect forms, so as to prepare our minds and make ready the way for complete perception hereafter. It is probable that the human race is quite incompetent to receive a really great idea the first time it is offered.

Oliver Lodge

All we know at present of locomotion is the locomotion of one piece of matter with reference to other pieces. That can be freely granted, and the whole edifice of physics is consistent with the idea that locomotion through the ether is impossible to measure. But the impossibility has never been proved, and some day an exceptional phenomenon may be found.

Oliver Lodge

The oldest and best known function for an ether is the conveyance of light, and hence the name "luminiferous" was applied to it, though at the present day many functions are known, and more will almost certainly be discovered.

Oliver Lodge

It must be admitted that among a certain number of advanced mathematical physicists whose work has lain mainly in the twentieth century, the ether is regarded with suspicion, or even with contempt. And some of the opponents go so far as to as to say that the nineteenth century idea of the ether has failed to establish itself, and that in consequence the whole idea of the ether is under a cloud, and that it is only upheld by a few antiquated supporters, who, though are willing to admit many modifications in the original nineteenth century notions of an ether, feel the need of a medium capable of performing the functions attributed to it.

Oliver Lodge

All potential energy exists in the ether. It may vibrate, and it may rotate, but as regards locomotion it is stationary-the most stationary body we know: absolutely stationary, so to speak; our standard of rest.

Oliver Lodge

The things to be investigated are either true or false. If false, pertinacious inquiry will reveal their falsity. If true, they are profoundly important. For there are no half-truths in Nature; every smallest departure has portentous consequences; our eyes must open slowly, or we should be overwhelmed.

Oliver Lodge

Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is. We change our state at birth, and come into the world of air and sense and myriad existence; we change our state at death and enter a region of-what?

Oliver Lodge

It is not the germ cell itself, but the bodily accretion or appendage, which is abandoned by life, and which accordingly, dies and decays.

Oliver Lodge

What properties are essential to a medium capable of transmitting wave motion? Roughly, we may say two: elasticity and inertia.

Oliver Lodge

Microscopic organisms may have troublesome and destructive effects, but in themselves they can be be studied with interest and avidity.

Oliver Lodge