Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open.

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

The merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth.

One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.

In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to take the proper measures; whereas in America, you telephone the fire department. Each satisfies a characteristic need; in the English, love of order and legalistic procedure; and here in America, what you like is something vivid, and red, and swift.