There are men who would be afraid to commit themselves on the doctrine that castor oil is a laxative.

The supernatural does not exist.

What intelligent being, what being capable of responding emotionally to a beautiful sight, can look at the jagged, silvery lunar crescent trembling in the azure sky, even through the weakest of telescopes, and not be struck by it in an intensely pleasurable way, not feel cut off from everyday life here on Earth and transported toward that first step on celestial journeys?

What, then, is this blue sky, which certainly does exist, and which veils from us the stars during the day?

Nature is so varied in its modes of action, so multiple in the manisftations of its power, that we have no night to set any limits to its capabilities.

If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about?

Le Verrier-without leaving his study, without even looking at the sky-had found the unknown planet [Neptune] solely by mathematical calculation, and, as it were, touched it with the tip of his pen!