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Francis Galton Biography

Sir Francis Galton, FRS (/ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈɡɔːltən/; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English Victorian era statistician, progressive, polymath, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician. He was knighted in 1909.

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Francis Galton Quotes

The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal. It is retained by its extra-ordinary adhesion to the comforts of the house in which it is reared.

Adhesion, Animal, Cat, Comforts, House

The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.

Development, Generally, Publication, Science, Spirit, Unauthenticated

It is always the case with the best work, that it is misrepresented, and disparaged at first, for it takes a curiously long time for new ideas to become current, and the older men who ought to be capable of taking them in freely, will not do so through prejudice.

Curiously, Freely, Hard Work, Ideas, Men, Time

Life is a republic where the individuals are for the most part unconscious that while they are working for themselves they are also working for the public good.

Good, Individual, Individuals, Life Is, Republic, Unconscious

The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.

Civilization, Class, Common, Eugenics

We shall therefore take an appropriately correct view of the origin of our life, if we consider our own embryos to have sprung immediately from those embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. We should in this way look on the nature of mankind, and perhaps on that of the whole animated creation, as one Continuous System, ever pushing out new branches in all directions, that variously interlace, and that bud into separate lives at every point of interlacement.

Creation, Parent, Separate, Variously, Views, Way

The inferiority of photographs to the best works of artists, so far as resemblance is concerned, lies in their catching no more than a single expression. If many photographs of a person were taken at different times, perhaps even years apart, their composite would possess that in which a single photograph is deficient.

Artist, Catching, Composite, Lying, Possess, Taken

Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not brutalized, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power of dealing with complicated phenomena is extraordinary. They are the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

Cutting, Handled, Hate, Men, Path

I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error. " The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.

Confusion, Deified, Errors, Expressed, Math, Self

One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

Civilization, Land, Law, Preserves, Rigour

[Statistics are] the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

Cutting, Man, Math, Men, Path, Statistics

I do not so easily think in words. . . . after being hard at work having arrived at results that are perfectly clear. . . I have to translate my thoughts in a language that does not run evenly with them.

Arrived, Doe, Running, Thinking, Thoughts, Words

The object. . . is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussion.

Expression, Groups, Information, Object, Suitable

There is a steady check in an old civilisation upon the fertility of the abler classes: the improvident and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high civilisation.

Abler, Class, Deteriorates, Fit, Generations, Race

Well-washed and well-combed domestic pets grow dull; they miss the stimulus of fleas.

Dog, Dull, Fleas, Miss, Missing, Pet

The phrase 'nature and nurture' is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth.

Influence, Men, Personality, Phrase, Separates, Two

Exercising the right of occasional suppression and slight modification, it is truly absurd to see how plastic a limited number of observations become, in the hands of men with preconceived ideas.

Become, Exercise, Men, Number, Science, Slight

Englishmen Francis Galton to describe the "science" of bettering human stock and the elimination of unwanted characteristics. . . and individuals. Galton proposed societal intervention for the furtherance of "racial quality," maintaining that "Jews are specialized for a parasitical existence upon other nations" and that "except by sterilization I cannot yet see any way of checking the produce of the unfit who are allowed their liberty and are below the reach of moral control.

Bettering, Liberty, Maintaining, Quality, Societal, Stock

I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

Baby, Children, Good, Implied, Patience, School

All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.

Animal, Animals, Bystanders, Including, Love, Men

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