Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.

Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.

The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish.

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.