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.

Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.

If we ought not to fear mortal truth, still less should we dread scientific truth. In the first place it can not conflict with ethics? But if science is feared, it is above all because it can give no happiness? Man, then, can not be happy through science but today he can much less be happy without it.

[T]he different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition [G]eometry is not true, it is advantageous.

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

The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.

We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.