The natures and dispositions of men are, not without truth, distinguished from the predominance of the planets.

Nothing opens the heart like a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes...and whatever lies upon the heart.

If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over hostile critics as a disputant; to attain, in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join our ranks.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

For no man can forbid the spark nor tell whence it may come.

Men are rather beholden ... generally to chance or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and sciences.

Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled: Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, 'If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.'