Georges Cuvier
A founder of paleontology and comparative anatomy, known for his work on extinction and his opposition to evolutionary theories.
Most quoted
"The animal kingdom, viewed in its entirety, presents a vast and complex network of relationships, where every part is connected to every other part, and where the destruction of one link can reverberate throughout the whole."
— from Le Règne Animal distribué d'après son organisation
"Every organized being forms a whole, a unique and closed system, of which all the parts mutually correspond and concur to the same definitive action by a reciprocal reaction."
— from The Animal Kingdom, 1817
"Our consciousness allows us to reflect on our own mortality, to ponder the meaning of our brief existence, and to seek solace in the enduring patterns of the natural world."
— from Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe
All quotes by Georges Cuvier (414)
The species that have perished have left no descendants.
Zoology is the science that embraces all the knowledge we can acquire concerning animals.
The earth's crust contains the history of life, written in the remains of extinct organisms.
The function makes the organ, but the organ also limits the function.
To understand an animal, one must understand its place in the grand scheme of creation.
Nature knows no jumps; she proceeds by gradations.
The permanence of forms is a law of nature, interrupted only by the great catastrophes that have overturned the globe.
The study of fossils is the true antiquarianism of nature.
Each part of an animal is a fragment of the whole idea of that animal.
The history of the earth is written in its strata.
The animal economy is a system of compensations and equilibriums.
The present is the key to the past, but the past also contains keys unknown to the present.
A single bone can often reveal the general structure of an animal.
The Creator has not abandoned any of his creatures; he has given each the means to survive in its assigned place.
The revolutions of the globe have been the great agents of change in the living world.
The uniformity of nature is a postulate of science, but the facts often reveal its discontinuity.
The aim of natural history is not merely to describe, but to understand the relations between beings.
The organism is a living whole, not an assemblage of independent parts.
Extinction is the grave of species, as death is the grave of individuals.
The laws of organization are as constant as the laws of physics, but far more complex.
Contemporaries of Georges Cuvier
Other Biologys born within 50 years of Georges Cuvier (1769–1832).