It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.

But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.

Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem.

All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will employ this language, and for all those who can speak and understand it, his prediction is free from ambiguity. Moreover, this prediction once made, it evidently does not depend upon him whether it is fulfilled or not.