“It is impossible to disassociate language from science, To call forth a concept, a word is needed.”

As ideas are preserved and communicated by means of words, it necessarily follows that we cannot improve the language of any science, without at the same time improving the science itself; neither can we, on the other hand, improve a science without improving the language or nomenclature which belongs to it.

In performing experiments, it is necessary… that they be simplified as much as possible, and that every circumstance that could complicate the results should be completely removed.

A wealthy landowner cannot cultivate and improve his farm without spreading comfort and well-being around him. Rich and abundant crops, a numerous population and a prosperous countryside are the rewards for his efforts.

Thus, while I thought myself employed only in forming a Nomenclature, and while I proposed to myself nothing more than to improve the chemical language, my work transformed itself by degrees, without my being able to prevent it, into a treatise upon the Elements of Chemistry.

We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.

It is not only by the pores of the skin that this aqueous emaciation takes place. A considerable quantity of humidity is also exhaled by the lungs at each expiration.

Vegetables are organized bodies that grow on the dry areas of the globe and within its waters. Their function is to combine immediately the four elements and to serve as food for animals.

Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.

The whole art of making experiments in chemistry is founded on the principle: we must always suppose an exact equality or equation between the principles of the body examined and those of the products of its analysis.

Vegetation is the basic instrument the creator uses to set all of nature in motion.

I am young and avid for glory.

Perhaps; some day the precision of the data will be brought so far that the mathematician will be able to calculate at his desk the outcome of any chemical combination, in the same way, so to speak, as he calculates the motions of celestial bodies.

Sulfur, when burning, absorbs oxygen gas; the resulting acid is considerably heavier than the sulfur burned; its weight is equal to the sum of weights of the sulfur burned and the oxygen absorbed.

Nothing is born, nothing dies.

Mathematicians come to the solution of a problem by the simple arrangement of the data, and reducing the reasoning to such simple operations, to judgments so brief, that they never lose sight of the evidence that serves as their guide.

Diminish the mass of evils that afflict the human species, increase enjoyment and well-being. And even if the new routes opened up could prolong the average life of mankind by only a few hours, or even a few days, then the scientist, too could aspire.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind.

I am still of the same opinion because the impossibility of the formation of mountains by the sea is demonstrated to me.

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

True happiness is impossible without solitude.

It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.

Every day I read the newspapers, and no matter how cynical I get, it’s imposssible to keep up.