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The sensations of our nerves of sense are mere symbols indicating certain external objects, and it is usually only after considerable practice that we acquire the power of drawing correct conclusions from our sensations respecting the corresponding objects.

— Hermann von Helmholtz Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

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More quotes by Hermann von Helmholtz

As you are aware, no perceptions obtained by the senses are merely sensations impressed on our nervous systems.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

The quantity of force which can be brought into action in the whole of Nature is unchangeable, and can neither be increased nor diminished.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

The external work of man is of the most varied kind as regards the force or ease, the form and rapidity, of the motions used on it, and the kind of work produced.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications. But intellectual satisfaction we obtain only from a connection of the whole, just from its conformity with law.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

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