After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.

Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.

No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.

Every epoch has its character determined by the way its population reacts to the material events which they encounter.

Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.

...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.