Jean-Henri Fabre > Quotes

“What matters in learning is not to be taught, but to wake up.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Passionate Observer

“The mind is an activity, not a repository.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Passionate Observer

“Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.
[Referring to studying fossil remains of the weevil, largely unchanged to the present day.]”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life and Love of the Insect

“Science too proceeds by lantern-flashes; it explores nature's inexhaustible mosiac piece by piece. Too often the wick lacks oil; the glass panes of the lantern may not be clean. No matter : his work is not in vain who first recognizes and shows to others one speck of the vast unknown.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre

“La clarté est la souveraine politesse de qui manie une plume.

(Clarity is the sovereign politeness of the one who wields a pen.)”
― Jean-Henri Fabre

“The custom of eating the lover after consummination of the nuptials, of making a meal of the exhausted pigmy, who is henceforth good for nothing, is not so difficult to understand, since insects can hardly be accused of sentimentality; but to devour him during the act surpasses anything the most morbid mind could imagine. I have seen the thing with my own eyes, and I have not yet recovered from my surprise.”
― Jean Henri Fabre

“People declare as much, without, apparently, looking into the matter very closely. They seem able to dispense with the conscientious observer's scruples, when inflating their bladder of theory.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life of the Spider

“RAIN”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Story-book of Science

“summary”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life of the Spider

“A little science is something that they must have. I should like my nephews to know what air is, and water; why we breathe, and why wood burns; the nutritive elements essential to plant life, and the constituents of the soil. And it is no vague and imperfect knowledge from hearsay I would have them gain of these fundamental truths, on which depend agriculture and the industrial arts and our health itself; I would have them know these things thoroughly from their own observation and experience. Books here are insufficient, and can serve merely as aids to scientific experiment.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Wonder Book of Chemistry

“I approve of your wanting true stories,” said he. “You will find in them at the same time the marvelous, which pleases so much at your age, and also the useful, with which even at your age you must concern yourselves, in preparation for after life. Believe me, a true story is much more interesting than a tale in which ogres smell fresh blood and fairies change pumpkins into carriages and lizards into lackeys. And could it be otherwise? Compared with truth, fiction is but a pitiful trifle; for the former is the work of God, the latter the dream of man. Mother Ambroisine could not interest you with the ant that broke its leg in trying to cross the ice. Shall I be more fortunate? Who wants to hear a true story of real ants?”
― Jeanhenri Fabre

“for the same carbon is forever passing from atmosphere to plant, from plant to animal, and from animal to atmosphere, this last being the common storehouse”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Wonder Book of Chemistry

“You speak to me, in your own fashion, of a strange psychology which is able to reconcile the wonders of a master craftsmanship with aberrations due to unfathomable stupidity.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life of the Spider

“A living speck-the merest dab of life-capable of pleasure and pain, is far more interesting to me than all the immensities of mere matter.”
― Jean Fabre

“so slow is moral progress. True, we have the bicycle, the motor-car, the dirigible airship and other marvellous means of breaking our bones; but our morality is not one rung the higher for it all. One would even say that, the farther we proceed in our conquest of matter, the more our morality recedes. The most advanced of our inventions consists in bringing men down with grapeshot and explosives with the swiftness of the reaper mowing the corn.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Life of the Spider

“Let us see but a little at a time and see that little plainly; that is the way to acquire substantial and lasting knowledge.”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Wonder Book of Chemistry

“Then the air the sparrow breathed we could breathe tool”
― Jean-Henri Fabre, The Wonder Book of Chemistry