Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small

One must shy away from questionable undertakings, even when they bear a high-sounding name.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

James Clerk Maxwell's [work is the] most profound and the most fruitful.

As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

The sceptic will say, 'It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint, but this does not prove that it corresponds to nature.' You are right, dear sceptic. Experience alone can decide on truth.

The harmony of natural law reveals an Intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.