Specimen Quotes - page 2
You see I am like a surgeon in a hospital; all these [sketches / watercolors] lying around me are my patients, and as I walk about among them I notice those most in need of doctoring. I pick out some sickly looking specimen and say to myself, 'Only wait a moment, and I will find some remedy for you'; some need much medicine, and some even require a severe operation to bring them round. Look at that one in the corner. I believe it is suffering from jaundice, but doubtless I shall find a cure for it.
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
THE prejudice which is commonly entertained against metaphysical speculations seems to arise chiefly from two causes: First, from an apprehension that the subjects about which they are employed, are placed beyond the reach of the human faculties; and, secondly, from a belief that these subjects have no relation to the business of life.
The frivolous and absurd discussions which abound in the writings of most metaphysical authors, afford but too many arguments in justification of these opinions; and if such discussions were to be admitted as a fair specimen of what the human mind is able to accomplish in this department of science, the contempt, into which it has fallen of late, might with justice be regarded, as no inconsiderable evidence of the progress, which true philosophy has made in the present age.
Dugald Stewart
The fact is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century - it was actually mummified, skin and all - but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.
Adam Savage
Let me endeavour, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization vanished from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law. – Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element.
William Ewart Gladstone
Baryonyx is on display at the Natural History Museum in London. If you ever get the chance to view this wonderful specimen, remember that you just might be looking at the skeleton of one of the dragons from English history and legend (e.g., Sir George the Dragon Slayer) or one of the dragons spoken of in the Bible.
Ken Ham
There is a widespread public misperception, particularly among the New Age sector, that the Chinese word for "crisis” is composed of elements that signify "danger” and "opportunity.” I first encountered this curious specimen of alleged oriental wisdom about ten years ago at an altitude of 35,000 feet sitting next to an American executive. ... While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean "crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of "danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify "opportunity.” ... The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.
Victor H. Mair
It is an old story in physics that higher resolving power leads to new effects. We remember that the magnetic moment of the nucleus was itself discovered through the hyperfine structure of lines in the visible spectrum. The nuclear resonance line in a liquid or gas can be remarkably narrow, as you have already seen. As soon as the reason for this was recognized, it became clear that the only practical limit on resolution was the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field applied to the specimen.
Edward Mills Purcell
The years of childhood...My memory runs head-on into a scene that is like a symbol of those years. To me as I am today, that scene represents childhood itself, past and irrecoverable.When I saw the scene I felt the hand of farewell with which childhood would take its leave of me. I had a premonition at that instant that all my feeling of subjective time, or timelessness, might one day gush forth from within me and flood into the mold of that scene, to become an exact imitation of its people and movements and sounds; that simultaneous with the completion of this copy, the original might melt away into the distant perspectives of real and objective time;and that I might be left with nothing more than the mere imitation or, to say it another way, with nothing more than an accurately stuffed specimen of my childhood.
Yukio Mishima
It is clear, from his complete dependence on abuse, innuendo, misleading statements and lies in his "review article”, that Witzel has no logical argument to offer against my theory, analysis and conclusions. .... Far from launching a crusade against 19th century colonialism (Witzel's review article is a typical specimen of how a crusading article sounds), I in fact point out at some length why I cannot subscribe to any view which holds the 19th century "colonial” scholars more than superficially guilty for the AIT or its present-day ramifications.
Shrikant Talageri