True Specific Gravity

Famous quotes containing the words specific gravity, true, specific and/or gravity:

“The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

“Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)

“Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)