"[6] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of William Shakespeare and Baruch Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly.

He remarks in his journal that he "read day and night, knowing like the back of my hand, Arvidh Månsson's Rydaholm Book of Herbs, Tillandz's Flora Åboensis, Palmberg's Serta Florea Suecana, Bromelii's Chloros Gothica and Rudbeckii's Hortus Upsaliensis".

[28] Linnaeus entered the Växjö Katedralskola in 1724, where he studied mainly Greek, Hebrew, theology and mathematics, a curriculum designed for boys preparing for the priesthood.

[3] Professor Kilian Stobæus, natural scientist, physician and historian, offered Linnaeus tutoring and lodging, as well as the use of his library, which included many books about botany.

[43][44] During a visit with his parents, Linnaeus told them about his plan to travel to Lapland; Rudbeck had made the journey in 1695, but the detailed results of his exploration were lost in a fire seven years afterwards.

[48] He sometimes dismounted on the way to examine a flower or rock[49] and was particularly interested in mosses and lichens, the latter a main part of the diet of the reindeer, a common and economically important animal in Lapland.

Upon observing the lower jawbone of a horse at the side of a road he was travelling, Linnaeus remarked: "If I only knew how many teeth and of what kind every animal had, how many teats and where they were placed, I should perhaps be able to work out a perfectly natural system for the arrangement of all quadrupeds.

[70] In August 1735, during Linnaeus's stay with Burman, he met George Clifford III, a director of the Dutch East India Company and the owner of a rich botanical garden at the estate of Hartekamp in Heemstede.

[3] The noble family's coat of arms prominently features a twinflower, one of Linnaeus's favourite plants; it was given the scientific name Linnaea borealis in his honour by Gronovius.

Another Swedish scientist, Johan Andreas Murray, issued the Regnum Vegetabile section separately in 1774 as the Systema Vegetabilium, rather confusingly labelled the 13th edition.

It was through the Systema Vegetabilium that Linnaeus's work became widely known in England, following its translation from the Latin by the Lichfield Botanical Society as A System of Vegetables (1783–1785).

[152] ('Opinion of the learned world on the writings of Carl Linnaeus, Doctor') Published in 1740, this small octavo-sized pamphlet was presented to the State Library of New South Wales by the Linnean Society of NSW in 2018.

Next to his own collection he had also built up a museum for the university of Uppsala, which was supplied by material donated by Carl Gyllenborg (in 1744–1745), crown-prince Adolf Fredrik (in 1745), Erik Petreus (in 1746), Claes Grill (in 1746), Magnus Lagerström (in 1748 and 1750) and Jonas Alströmer (in 1749).

[158] Much material which had been intensively studied by Linné in his scientific career belonged to the collection of Queen Lovisa Ulrika (1720–1782) (in the Linnean publications referred to as "Museum Ludovicae Ulricae" or "M. L.

[156] The establishment of universally accepted conventions for the naming of organisms was Linnaeus's main contribution to taxonomy—his work marks the starting point of consistent use of binomial nomenclature.

[163] During the 18th century expansion of natural history knowledge, Linnaeus also developed what became known as the Linnaean taxonomy; the system of scientific classification now widely used in the biological sciences.

Nevertheless, Linnaeus is credited with establishing the idea of a hierarchical structure of classification which is based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships.

[163][167] While the underlying details concerning what are considered to be scientifically valid "observable characteristics" have changed with expanding knowledge (for example, DNA sequencing, unavailable in Linnaeus's time, has proven to be a tool of considerable utility for classifying living organisms and establishing their evolutionary relationships), the fundamental principle remains sound.

Linnaeus's system of taxonomy was especially noted as the first to include humans (Homo) taxonomically grouped with apes (Simia), under the header of Anthropomorpha.

[172] This classification received criticism from other biologists such as Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Jacob Theodor Klein and Johann Georg Gmelin on the ground that it is illogical to describe man as human-like.

[175] The conflict between world views that was caused by asserting man was a type of animal would simmer for a century until the much greater, and still ongoing, creation–evolution controversy began in earnest with the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859.

The 10th edition of Systema Naturae introduced new terms, including Mammalia and Primates, the latter of which would replace Anthropomorpha[176] as well as giving humans the full binomial Homo sapiens.

[187][188] In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae he further detailed phenotypical characteristics for each variety, based on the concept of the four temperaments from classical antiquity,[189][dubious – discuss] and changed the description of Asians' skin tone to "luridus" (yellow).

[190] While Linnaeus believed that these varieties resulted from environmental differences between the four known continents,[191] the Linnean Society acknowledges that his categorization's focus on skin color and later inclusion of cultural and behavioral traits cemented colonial stereotypes and provided the foundations for scientific racism.

[194][195][196] Linnaeus's applied science was inspired not only by the instrumental utilitarianism general to the early Enlightenment, but also by his adherence to the older economic doctrine of Cameralism.

He supported tariffs, levies, export bounties, quotas, embargoes, navigation acts, subsidised investment capital, ceilings on wages, cash grants, state-licensed producer monopolies, and cartels.

Linnaeus wrote a description of himself in his autobiography Egenhändiga anteckningar af Carl Linnæus om sig sjelf : med anmärkningar och tillägg, which was published by his student Adam Afzelius in 1823: Linnaeus was not big, not small, thin, brown-eyed, light, hasty, walked quickly, did everything promptly, could not stand lateness; was quickly moved, sensitive, worked continuously; could not spare himself.

[203]The mathematical PageRank algorithm, applied to 24 multilingual Wikipedia editions in 2014, published in PLOS ONE in 2015, placed Carl Linnaeus at the top historical figure, above Jesus, Aristotle, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler (in that order).

Some critics claim that Linnæus was one of the forebears of the modern pseudoscientific notion of scientific racism, while others hold the view that while his classification was stereotyped, it did not imply that certain human "races" were superior to others.

Recently many of our best naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded by Linnaeus, so remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed man in the same Order with the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates.