... those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded... Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phenomena - care not to understand the architecture of the heavens, but are deeply interested in some contemptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots!

When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves.

Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity…It is a part of nature.

In assuming any office besides its essential one, the State begins to lose the power of fulfilling its essential one.

The question of questions for the politicians should ever be-What type of social structure am I tending to produce? But this is a question he never entertains.

The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is - a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.

Policeman are soldiers who act alone; soldiers are policeman who act in unison.