Nowadays beautiful women are counted among the talents of their husbands.

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.

As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost like to try to say it all in a single word.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year.

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger.