Hugh Miller Quotes

I used to dig around the sandbox and pull out pieces of coal and show them to my mother, and she used to say that's how I must have known I was going to be a geologist.

I am a geologist.

Pressure, no doubt, has always been a most important factor in the metamorphism of rocks; but there is, I think, at present some danger in over-estimating this, and representing a partial statement of truth as the whole truth. Geology, like many human beings, suffered from convulsions in its infancy; now, in its later years, I apprehend an attack of pressure on the brain.

Sand is overrated. It's just tiny little rocks.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth..." Whatever our speculations may be in regard to a "beginning," and when it was, it is written in the rocks that, like the animals and plants upon its surface, the earth itself grew.

When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.

I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself.

In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don't.

They say, you know, about evolution, it surely happened because their fossil record shows that. Look, my body and your body are miracles of design. Scientists are pretending they have the answer as how we got this way when natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines.

Young girls are the chatelaines of truth; they must see that it is protected, that the guilty lead the life of the guilty, even if the world rocks on its foundations.

Miracles and magic pervade the things that I've written, but yet there are no miracles and there is no magic.

Each time we make this shift and choose happiness, we experience a miracle. Our mind shifts from fearful delusions and reconnects to our truth, which is love. Creating these shifts requires a dedicated commitment to choosing love.

Mr. Lyell's system of geology is just half the truth, and no more. He affirms a great deal that is true, and he denies a great deal which is equally true; which is the general characteristic of all systems not embracing the whole truth.

The existing and long-standing use of the word 'evolution' in our state's textbooks has not adversely affected Georgians' belief in the omnipotence of God as creator of the universe, There can be no incompatibility between Christian faith and proven facts concerning geology, biology, and astronomy. There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.

You have to understand, in the current academic climate, Intelligent Design is like leprosy or heresy in times past. To be tagged as an ID supporter is to become an academic pariah, and this holds even at so-called Christian institutions that place a premium on respectability at the expense of truth and the offense of the Gospel.

Miracles are like candles lit up until the sun rises, and then blown out. Therefore, I am amused when I hear sects and churches talk about having evidence of Divine authority because they have miracles. Miracles in our time are like candles in the street at midday. We do not want miracles. They are to teach men how to find out truths themselves; and after they have learned this, they no more need them than a well man needs a staff, or a grown-up child needs a walking-stool.

In my youth,geology was nervously striving to accommodate itself to Genesis. Now it is Genesis that is striving to accommodate itself to geology.

Honesty is a rare commodity in a palace, and that is why so many fairy-tale marriages end up on the rocks.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

What are men to rocks and mountains?

If even rock was interesting, if even this ugliness was worth whole shelves at the library, required sophisticated tools to study, and inspired grown men to crack mountains and saw crystals--then what wasn't?

The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.

If it screams truth rather than help, if it commits itself with a courage that it can't be sure it really has, if it stands up and admits that something is wrong, but doesn't insist on blood, then it's rock n' roll.

It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle.

XXVIII "Truth," said a traveller, "Is a rock, a mighty fortress; "Often have I been to it, "Even to its highest tower, "From whence the world looks black." "Truth," said a traveller, "Is a breath, a wind, "A shadow, a phantom; "Long have I pursued it, "But never have I touched "The hem of its garment." And I believed the second traveller; For truth was to me A breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom, And never had I touched The hem of its garment.