44 of the Wisest Auguste Comte Quotes (WISDOM)

Top 18 Most Famous Auguste Comte Quotes (BEST)

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination to follow the best course open to us, regardless of consequences. — The truest **wisdom** is a resolute **determination** to follow the best course open to us, regardless of consequences.

The only way to ensure the progress of society is to establish a hierarchy of knowledge, with the natural sciences at the top — The only way to ensure the progress of society is to establish a hierarchy of **knowledge**, with the natural sciences at the top.

The ultimate goal of society is to create a new science of humanity. — The ultimate **goal** of society is to create a new science of humanity.

The progress of science is the necessary condition for the progress of society.

The aim of sociology is to provide a scientific understanding of social phenomena.

The only true source of social order is the intellect, not the will.

In the intellectual order, the first and most essential condition of progress is the exclusion of all supernatural explanations.

The intellectual movement of the age is characterized by a gradual transition from theology to metaphysics, and from metaphysics to science.

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.

Know yourself to improve yourself. — Know yourself to **improve** yourself.

To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic culture of humanity. — To reorganize society without God or King, by the systematic **culture** of **humanity**.

Everything is relative; and only that is absolute.

Woman is the most moral element in all humanity.

If we do not allow free thinking in chemistry or biology, why should we allow it in morals or politics?

Religion is an illusion of childhood, outgrown under proper education. — Religion is an illusion of **childhood**, outgrown under proper **education**.

The only real life is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction. — The only real **life** is the collective life of the race; individual life has no existence except as an abstraction.

Humanity is always made up of more dead than living.

Ideas govern the world, or throw it into chaos.

10 Wise Auguste Comte Quotes to Ponder

“The human mind, by its nature, employs in its progress three methods of philosophizing, the character of which is essentially different, and even radically opposed: viz., the theological method, the metaphysical, and the positive. Hence arises three philosophies, or general systems of conceptions on the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes the others. The first is the necessary point of departure of the human understanding; and the third is its fixed and definitive state. The second is merely a state of transition.”
Auguste Comte

Induction for deduction, with a view to construction.

The universe displays no proof of an all-directing mind.

“But now, I, August Comte, have discovered the truth. Therefore, there is no longer any need for freedom of thought or freedom of the press. I want to rule and to organize the whole country.”
Auguste Comte

The heavens declare the glory of Kepler and Newton. — The heavens declare the glory of Kepler and **Newton**.

“In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws – that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.”
Auguste Comte

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy? — Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political **philosophy**?

“Monotheism occupies so large a space in the view of modern minds, that it is scarcely possible to form a just estimate of the preceding phases of the theological philosophy.”
Auguste Comte

2 Auguste Comte Quotes on Positivism

Positivism is a theory of knowledge according to which the only kind of sound knowledge available to human kind is that if science grounded in observation.

The sacred formula of positivism love as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal. — The sacred formula of positivism: **love** as a principle, the order as a foundation, and progress as a goal.

5 Auguste Comte Quotes on Science

“After Montesquieu, the next great addition to Sociology (which is the term I may be allowed to invent to designate Social Physics) was made by Condorcet, proceeding on the views suggested by his illustrious friend Turgot.”
Auguste Comte

Indeed, every true science has for its object the determination of certain phenomena by means of others, in accordance with the relations which exist between them.

“And now that man’s history has been for the first time systematically considered as a whole, and has been found to be, like all other phenomena, subject to invariable laws, the preparatory labors of modern Science are ended.”
Auguste Comte

Every science consists in the coordination of facts; if the different observations were entirely isolated, there would be no science.

To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.

4 Auguste Comte Quotes on Knowledge

“All good intellects have repeated, since Bacon’s time, that there can be no real knowledge but that which is based on observed facts. This is incontestable, in our present advanced stage; but, if we look back to the primitive stage of human knowledge, we shall see that it must have been otherwise then. If it is true that every theory must be based upon observed facts; it is equally true that facts can not be observed without the guidance of some theory. Without such guidance, our facts would be desultory and fruitless; we could not retain them: for the most part we could not even perceive them.”
Auguste Comte

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.

“The law is this: that each of our leading conceptions-each branch of our knowledge-passes successively through three different theoretical conditions: the Theological, or fictitious: the Metaphysical, or abstract; and the Scientific, or positive.”
Auguste Comte

2 Auguste Comte Quotes on Language

“Language forms a kind of wealth, which all can make use of at once without causing any diminution of the store, and which thus admits a complete community of enjoyment; for all, freely participating in the general treasure, unconsciously aid in its preservation.”
Auguste Comte

The word right should be excluded from political language, as the word cause from the language of philosophy.

4 Auguste Comte Quotes on Mathematics

“Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the spirit of chemistry. If mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry — an aberration which is happily almost impossible — it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science.”
Auguste Comte

In mathematics we find the primitive source of rationality; and to mathematics must the biologists resort for means to carry out their researches.

“The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.”
Auguste Comte