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Simon Winchester Quotes

The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new...

Simon Winchester

The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new...

Tags: geography, geology, god, science, volcanism, volcano

Sophisticated human beings were on hand to see this volcano's convulsions, they were able to investigate the event, and they were able to attempt to understand the processes that had caused such dread...

Simon Winchester

Sophisticated human beings were on hand to see this volcano's convulsions, they were able to investigate the event, and they were able to attempt to understand the processes that had caused such dread...

Tags: geology, indonesia, tsunami, volcanism

About Author
Simon Winchester (born 28 September 1944) is a British-American author and journalist. In his career at The Guardian newspaper, Winchester covered numerous significant events, including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. Winchester has written or contributed to over 30 nonfiction books, has written one novel, and has contributed to several magazines, among them Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.

He was mad, and for that, we have reason to be glad. A truly savage irony, on which it is discomforting to dwell.

Simon Winchester

He was mad, and for that, we have reason to be glad. A truly savage irony, on which it is discomforting to dwell.

Tags: madness

God—who in that part of London society was of course firmly held to be an Englishman—naturally approved the spread of the language as an essential imperial device;

Simon Winchester

God—who in that part of London society was of course firmly held to be an Englishman—naturally approved the spread of the language as an essential imperial device;

Apostates.

Simon Winchester

Apostates.

Defining words properly is a fine and peculiar craft. There are rules—a word (to take a noun as an example) must first be defined according to the class of things to which it belongs (mammal, quadrupe...

Simon Winchester

Defining words properly is a fine and peculiar craft. There are rules—a word (to take a noun as an example) must first be defined according to the class of things to which it belongs (mammal, quadrupe...

But wait—was that not how the world at large had come to think of the ocean as a whole? Wasn’t the ocean just distance for most people these days? Didn’t we all now take for granted a body of water th...

Simon Winchester

But wait—was that not how the world at large had come to think of the ocean as a whole? Wasn’t the ocean just distance for most people these days? Didn’t we all now take for granted a body of water th...

The basin of the Mississippi encompasses a good two thirds of the contiguous forty-eight states, thirty-one of which—together with two Canadian provinces—contribute waters to its flow.

Simon Winchester

The basin of the Mississippi encompasses a good two thirds of the contiguous forty-eight states, thirty-one of which—together with two Canadian provinces—contribute waters to its flow.

The first vehicle was an unmanned two-ton, hundred-thousand-dollar steel-caged contraption named ANGUS (for Acoustically Navigated Geophysical Underwater System), which had powerful strobe lights, a c...

Simon Winchester

The first vehicle was an unmanned two-ton, hundred-thousand-dollar steel-caged contraption named ANGUS (for Acoustically Navigated Geophysical Underwater System), which had powerful strobe lights, a c...

After all the years of waiting, the interested world could at least see the magnificent complexity of the undertaking, the detail, the filigree work, the sheer intricacies of exactitude that the edito...

Simon Winchester

After all the years of waiting, the interested world could at least see the magnificent complexity of the undertaking, the detail, the filigree work, the sheer intricacies of exactitude that the edito...

Worst of all, beginning to forget, and knowing that he was forgetting. His mind, though tortured, had always been peculiarly acute: Now, by 1918 and the end of World War I, he seemed to know that his...

Simon Winchester

Worst of all, beginning to forget, and knowing that he was forgetting. His mind, though tortured, had always been peculiarly acute: Now, by 1918 and the end of World War I, he seemed to know that his...

Our histories, our novels, our poems, our plays—they are all in this one book.

Simon Winchester

Our histories, our novels, our poems, our plays—they are all in this one book.

The language should be accorded just the same dignity and respect as those other standards that science was then also defining.

Simon Winchester

The language should be accorded just the same dignity and respect as those other standards that science was then also defining.

Another party, who took an iron boat named the Explorer into the Black Canyon of the lower Colorado River, came across an Indian of what they considered such staggering ugliness that one of their numb...

Simon Winchester

Another party, who took an iron boat named the Explorer into the Black Canyon of the lower Colorado River, came across an Indian of what they considered such staggering ugliness that one of their numb...

And that was about all that he really wished the world to know about himself. I am a nobody, he would write toward the end of the century, when fame had begun to creep up on him. Treat me as a solar m...

Simon Winchester

And that was about all that he really wished the world to know about himself. I am a nobody, he would write toward the end of the century, when fame had begun to creep up on him. Treat me as a solar m...

No one had a clue what they were up against: They were marching blindfolded through molasses. And

Simon Winchester

No one had a clue what they were up against: They were marching blindfolded through molasses. And

They were a formidable group—the college dean, Henry Liddell (whose daughter Alice had so captivated the Christ Church mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson that he wrote an adventure book for her, s...

Simon Winchester

They were a formidable group—the college dean, Henry Liddell (whose daughter Alice had so captivated the Christ Church mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson that he wrote an adventure book for her, s...

There is a Sacerdotall dignitie in my native Countrey contiguate to me, where I now contemplate: which your worshipfull benignitie could sone impenetrate for mee, if it would like you to extend your s...

Simon Winchester

There is a Sacerdotall dignitie in my native Countrey contiguate to me, where I now contemplate: which your worshipfull benignitie could sone impenetrate for mee, if it would like you to extend your s...

These were the soldiers of the Second Brigade—the Irish Brigade—and they were braver and rougher than almost any other unit in the entire Federal army. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was...

Simon Winchester

These were the soldiers of the Second Brigade—the Irish Brigade—and they were braver and rougher than almost any other unit in the entire Federal army. When anything absurd, forlorn, or desperate was...

2 percent of America’s electricity now goes to keeping the Internet cool, to keeping the link unbroken, for America and for the world.

Simon Winchester

2 percent of America’s electricity now goes to keeping the Internet cool, to keeping the link unbroken, for America and for the world.