Geography

History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning; its two eyes are geography and chronology. ~ James A. Garfield

Geography (from Greek γεωγραφία, geographia, lit. "earth description") is the science that studies the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of the Earth.

Quotes

Alphabetized by author

• GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• Kant, the great German master of logical thought, gave geography its place in the over-all framework of organized, objective knowledge.
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (1973) Vol 10, p. 153.

• History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning; its two eyes are geography and chronology.
  • James A. Garfield, as quoted in Freedom IS...: A Book/Journal with a Twist (2008) by Kathleen Wensel, p. 141.

• I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down.
  • Mitch Hedberg, — quoted in John Krygier, Denis Wood (2011). Making Maps, Second Edition. The Guilford Press. p. 58. ISBN 1609181670. 

• As a young man, my fondest dream was to become a geographer. However... I thought deeply about the matter and concluded that it was far too difficult a subject. With some reluctance, I then turned to physics as a substitute.
  • Duane F. Marble, Professor of Geography, posted this on his office door at SUNY at Buffalo, jestingly misattributing it to Albert Einstein; it has since been quoted as if it were a genuine quote of Einstein, and debunked at sites online and in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) edited by Alice Calaprice, p. 474.

• The unique purpose of geography is to seek comprehension of the variable character of areas in terms of all the interrelated features which together form that variable character.
  • Richard Hartshorne (1958) Perspective on the nature of geography. p. 20.

• Since my youth geography has been for me the primary object of study. When I was engaged in it, having applied the considerations of the natural and geometric sciences, I liked, little by little, not only the description of the earth, but also the structure of the whole machinery of the world, whose numerous elements are not known by anyone to date.
  • Gerardus Mercator (1578), Introduction to Ptolemy's Geography

• Ptolemy's Geography is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time.
  • Ptolemy, J. Lennart Berggren, Alexander Jones (2001) Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters.

• Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
  • Terry Pratchett in The Last Continent.

• Even heavy automobile traffic out of New York City on a summer weekend minutely unbalances the earth as it rotates.
  • Paul Allman Siple, in 90° South : The Story of the American South Pole Conquest (1959), p. 279.