Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms but stars; these grains also move with great velocities, they act at a distance one upon another, but this action is so slight at great distances that their trajectories are rectilineal; nevertheless, from time to time, two of them may come near enough together to be deviated from their course, like a comet that passed too close to Jupiter. In a word, in the eyes of a giant, to whom our Suns were what our atoms are to us, the Milky Way would only look like a bubble of gas.

A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter.

Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.

Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures.

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

Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results.

It is not order only, but unexpected order, that has value.