Truth is better disengaged from error than torn from it.

When a learner, in the fullness of his powers, comes to great truths unstaled by premature familiarity, he rejoices in the lateness of his lessons.

No gun is perfectly true. So the marksman, that he may hit the bull's-eye, points elsewhere.

Boundaries which mark off one field of science from another are purely artificial, are set up only for temporary convenience. Let chemists and physicists dig deep enough, and they reach common ground.

Error held as truth has much the effect of truth. In politics and religion this fact upsets many confident predictions.

We despair of changing the habits of men, still we would alter institutions, the habits of millions of men.

Ten builders rear an arch, each in turn lifting it higher; but it is the tenth man, who drops in the keystone, who hears our huzzas.