Charles Lyell > Quotes

“Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth's surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them. There is no possibility of escaping from this conclusion.”
― Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology

“The present is the key to the past”
― Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology

“Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed, or the direct intervention of the Supreme Cause, must simply be considered as an avowal that we deem the question to lie beyond the domain of science.”
― Charles Lyell, The Antiquity Of Man

“Thus, although we are mere sojourners on the surface of the planet, chained to a mere point in space, enduring but for a moment of time, the human mind is not only enabled to number worlds beyond the unassisted ken of mortal eye, but to trace the events of indefinite ages before the creation of our race, and is not even withheld from penetrating into the dark secrets of the ocean, or the solid globe.”
― Charles Lyell

“It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers, that the fall of an apple should assist in explaining the motions of the moon.”
― Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, Volume 3

“I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.”
― Charles Lyell, The Antiquity Of Man

“Geology is intimately related to almost all the physical sciences, as history is to the moral. An”
― Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology

“Each species may have had its origin in a single pair, or individual, where an individual was sufficient, and species may have been created in succession at such times and in such places as to enable them to multiply and endure for an appointed period, and occupy an appointed space on the globe.”
― Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, Volume 2