The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.

The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.