The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.

I always feel that I have two duties to perform with a parting guest: one, to see that he doesn't forget anything that is his; the other, to see that he doesn't take anything that is mine.

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts... Seek simplicity and distrust it.

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.

It is not paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications.

In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.