Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- While grand ideas capture our attention, true understanding of nature requires equal focus on small details.
- In plain terms
- Pay attention to small details as much as big ideas.
- What can you take from it?
- Study both the large patterns and the small details in nature.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What small detail changed your understanding?
- How do you balance big and small views?
Another view
Focusing too much on small things might obscure the bigger picture.
More from Alexander von Humboldt
The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.
Permalink to quote #4 In order to ameliorate without commotion new institutions must be made, as it were, to rise out of those which the barbarism of centuries has consecrated. It w…
Permalink to quote #6 One of the noblest characteristics which distinguish modern civilization from that of remoter times is, that it has enlarged the mass of our conceptions, rende…
Permalink to quote #3
Related quotes
To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling.
John HerschelJohn Herschel quote #3 I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on wh. we trample are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast …
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley quote #8 We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Werner HeisenbergWerner Heisenberg quote #11