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The Supreme has then not only spread life and movement throughout, and willed that its impress should be preserved, but has done more; for he has permitted man to associate in some degree with his work, and to modify it.

— Adolphe Quetelet

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Source: Adolphe Quételet. 1981. Letters addressed to H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, on the theory of probability. Arno Press, p. 134
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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Timorous persons have raised the cry of fatalism.

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In every instance, it is not my method that is defective; proper observations alone fail me.

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I am less desirous to explain phenomena than to establish their existence.

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I have been surprised to find how little variety of opinion exists, in different places, regarding what they concurred in terming the beautiful.

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This great body (the social body) subsists by virtue of conservative principles, as does everything which has proceeded from the hands of the Almighty...

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More quotes by Adolphe Quetelet

The time is come for studying the moral anatomy of man also, and for uncovering its most afflicting aspects, with the view of providing remedies.

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It is a remarkable fact in the history of science, that the more extended human knowledge has become, the more limited human power, in that respect, has constantly appeared.

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Society prepares the crime, and the guilty are only the instruments by which it is executed.

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But is the anatomy of man not a more painful science still?

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We must conceive the same distinctions in the moral world.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Adolphe Quetelet (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.