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Justus von Liebig Quotes

Chemist

Justus von Liebig, a German chemist born on May 12, 1803, and died on April 18, 1873, is considered one of the founders of organic chemistry. He made significant contributions to the development of agricultural chemistry and food science.

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Famous Justus von Liebig Quotes

“I would... establish the conviction that Chemistry, as an independent science, offers one of the most powerful means towards the attainment of a higher mental cultivation; that the study of Chemistry is profitable, not only inasmuch as it promotes the material interests of mankind, but also because it furnishes us with insight into those wonders of creation which immediately surround us, and with which our existence, life, and development, are most closely connected.”

Source: The Development of Chemistry, 1789-1914: Familiar letters on chemistry

“Without an acquaintance with chemistry, the statesman must remain a stranger to the true vital interests of the state, to the means of its organic development and improvement; ... The highest economic or material interests of a country, the increased and more profitable production of food for man and animals, ... are most closely linked with the advancement and diffusion of the natural sciences, especially of chemistry.”

Source: Familiar Letters on Chemistry, in its relation to Physiology, Dietetics, Agriculture, Commerce and Political Economy: Edited by John Blyth

“There are various causes for the generation of force: a tensed spring, an air current, a falling mass of water, fire burning under a boiler, a metal that dissolves in an acid-one and the same effect can be produced by means of all these various causes. But in the animal body we recognise only one cause as the ultimate cause of all generation of force, and that is the reciprocal interaction exerted on one another by the constituents of the food and the oxygen of the air. The only known and ultimate cause of the vital activity in the animal as well as in the plant is a chemical process.”