Antoine Lavoisier Quotes

This theory [the oxygen theory] is not as I have heard it described, that of the French chemists, it is mine (elle est la mienne); it is a property which I claim from my contemporaries and from posterity.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Description Myself Oxygen Theory
Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Creation Lost Transformation
It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Day Impossible Possible Prediction Publish
One succeeds in obtaining an equivalent production at a lower price by improving the arts, trades and agriculture and by developing the physical and moral qualities of workers, farmers and craftsmen.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Development Equality Farmer Moral Production Quality Success
I consider nature a vast chemical laboratory in which all kinds of composition and decompositions are formed.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Form Kind Laboratory Myself Nature
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Communication Hands Ideas Improvement Language Science Word
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Complication Experiment Performance Remove Result Simplicity
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Comfortable Cultivation Effort Himself Improvement Population Prosperity Reward
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Chemistry Element Employment Improvement Language Myself Prevent Transformation
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Experiment Fact Nature Observation Ourselves Present Road Search Trust
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Humidity Place Quantity Skin
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Animal Areas Body Combination Food Function Growth Service
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Beyond Confidence Fact Imagination Love Truth
It is impossible to disassociate language from science, To call forth a concept, a word is needed.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Impossible Language Need Science Word
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Art Chemistry Equality Examination Experiment Production
Vegetation is the basic instrument the creator uses to set all of nature in motion.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Creation Instrument Motion Nature
I am young and avid for glory.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Glory Myself Young
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Calculation Chemistry Combination Mathematics Space Talk Way
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Burn Chemistry Equality Result Science
Nothing is born, nothing dies.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Born Death One Liner Science
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Brief Evidence Guide Judgement Lose Mathematics Problem Service Simplicity Solution
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.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Aspiration Average Enjoyment Evil Human Life Science
The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Art Complication Difficult Draw Enough Experiment Greatness Kind Observation Thinking
Languages are true analytical methods.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Language Method True
Experiments upon vegetation give reason to believe that light combines with certain parts of vegetables, and that the green of their leaves, and the various colors of flowers, is chiefly owing to this combination.
ANTOINE LAVOISIER

Believe Combination Experiment Flower Reason

Famous Chemists