James Clerk Maxwell Quotes

The vast interplanetary and interstellar regions will no longer be regarded as waste places in the universe, which the Creator has not seen fit to fill with the symbols of the manifold order of His kingdom. We shall find them to be already full of this wonderful medium; so full, that no human power can remove it from the smallest portion of Space, or produce the slightest flaw in its infinite continuity.

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is yet unable to express. Let them make the effort to express these ideas in appropriate words without the aid of symbols, and if they succeed they will not only lay us laymen under a lasting obligation, but we venture to say, they will find themselves very much enlightened during the process, and will even be doubtful whether the ideas as expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations of their minds.

The general equations are next applied to the case of a magnetic disturbance propagated through a non-conductive field, and it is shown that the only disturbances which can be so propagated are those which are transverse to the direction of propagation, and that the velocity of propagation is the velocity v, found from experiments such as those of Weber, which expresses the number of electrostatic units of electricity which are contained in one electromagnetic unit. This velocity is so nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself (including radiant heat, and other radiations if any) is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws.

How the learned fool would wonder
Were he now to see his blunder,
When he put his reason under The control of worldly Pride.

He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday's work, lest he fall into despair; nor to-morrow's, lest he become a visionary—not that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work; nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.
Happy is the man who can recognise in the work of to-day a connected portion of the work of life and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.
Thus ought Man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible; nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.

I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable. But I think that the results which each man arrives at in his attempts to harmonize his science with his Christianity ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a society.

Ask no more, then, "what is best,
How shall those you love be blest,"
Ask at once eternal Rest, Peace and assurance giving.
Rest of Life and not of death,
Rest in Love and Hope and Faith,
Til the God who gives their breath Calls them to rest from living.

And last of all we have the secondary forms of crystals bursting in upon us, and sparkling in the rigidity of mathematical necessity and telling us, neither of harmony of design, usefulness or moral significance, — nothing but spherical trigonometry and Napier's analogies. It is because we have blindly excluded the lessons of these angular bodies from the domain of human knowledge that we are still in doubt about the great doctrine that the only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

The world may be utterly crazy And life may be labour in vain;
But I'd rather be silly than lazy, And would not quit life for its pain.

It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state...

The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.

But listen, what harmony holy Is mingling its notes with our own!
The discord is vanishing slowly, And melts in that dominant tone.
And they that have heard it can never Return to confusion again,
Their voices are music for ever, And join in the mystical strain.

By the hollow mauntain-side Questions strange I shout for ever,
While echoes far and wide Seem to mock my vain endeavour; Still I shout, for though they never
Cast my borrowed voice aside, Words from empty words they sever—
Words of Truth from words of Pride.

The whole science of heat is founded Thermometry and , and when these operations are understood we may proceed to the third step, which is the investigation of those relations between the thermal and the mechanical properties of substances which form the subject of Thermodynamics. The whole of this part of the subject depends on the consideration of the Intrinsic Energy of a system of bodies, as depending on the temperature and physical state, as well as the form, motion, and relative position of these bodies. Of this energy, however, only a part is available for the purpose of producing mechanical work, and though the energy itself is indestructible, the available part is liable to diminution by the action of certain natural processes, such as conduction and radiation of heat, friction, and viscosity. These processes, by which energy is rendered unavailable as a source of work, are classed together under the name of the Dissipation of Energy.

We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject <nowiki>[of electricity]</nowiki> has been greatly developed by writers who express themselves in terms of the 'Two Fluids' theory. Their results, however, have been deduced entirely from data which can be proved by experiment, and which must therefore be true, whether we adopt the theory of two fluids or not. The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory.