Auguste Comte Quotations

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them.

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.

Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science.

The only real life is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction.

Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.

The word 'right' should be excluded from political language, as the word 'cause' from the language of philosophy.

The word right should be excluded from political language, as the word cause from the language of philosophy.

History has now been for the first time systematically considered, and has been found, like other phenomena, subject to invariable laws.

In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.

The heavens declare the glory of Kepler and Newton.

Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.

After Montesquieu, the next great addition to Sociology (which is the term I may be allowed to invent to designate Social Physics) was made by Condorcet, proceeding on the views suggested by his illustrious friend Turgot.

Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.

Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry.... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry -- an aberration which is happily almost impossible -- it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.

Foreknowledge is power.

Mathematical Analysis is... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.

In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws-that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.

The universe displays no proof of an all-directing mind.

The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.

Induction for deduction, with a view to construction.

C'este donc par l'étude des mathématiques, et seulement par elle, que l'on peut se faire une idée juste et approfondie de ce que c'est qu'une science.

The dead govern the living.

But now, I, August Comte, have discovered the truth. Therefore, there is no longer any need for freedom of thought or freedom of the press. I want to rule and to organize the whole country.

If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics?

Humanity is always made up of more dead than living.

Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.

Woman is the most moral element in all humanity.

All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts, it is equally true that facts cannot be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.

The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge-passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious: the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.

To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of Humanity.

Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education.

Know yourself to improve yourself.

The sacred formula of positivism: love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.

Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.