Book/Conceptual Mathematics/OnSymmetries

Lawvere, William; Schanuel, Stephen (January 8, 2009). Conceptual Mathematics_A First Introduction to Categories (2nd ed.). local page: Cambridge University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0521719162. 

On Page 180

In 1872 Felix Klein proposed that the way to study an object is to investigate all its automorphisms, which he called symmetries. 

Other references

Sir William Hamilton also had a one-pager memo that relates quaternion with the subject of symmetry.