Charles Lyell

“Let the spectator substitute in his imaginationTranslation and commentary for the successively rising and sinking of the ground, the alternate growth and decay of vegetation, the appearance and disappearance of animal species, and he will have a lively conception of the grandeur of the spectacle.”

“The present is the key to the past.”

“So far as the evidence reaches, we have yet to learn that the fluctuations of the land, during the recent and tertiary periods, have been bounded within narrower limits than in the antecedent ages of the world.”

“Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change.”

“Geology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it inquires into the causes of these changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the surface and external structure of our planet.”

“It is probable that the quantity of land and sea, and the general outline of the continents and oceans, have been for a long period nearly the same as at present.”

“Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth's surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them.”

“The form of a coast, the configuration of the interior of a country, the existence and extent of lakes, valleys, and mountains, can often be traced to the former prevalence of earthquakes and volcanoes.”