The whole language of nature informs us, that in animated beings there is something above our powers of investigation; something which employs, combines, and arranges the gross elements of matter - a spark of celestial fire, by which life is kindled and preserved, and which, if even the instruments it employs are indestructible in their essence, must itself, of necessity, be immortal.

I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.

Profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of human reason, and it is the superficial thinker who is generally strongest in every kind of unbelief.

The art galleries of Paris contain the finest collection of frames I ever saw.

Consistency in opinion is the slow poison of intellectual life, the destroyer of its vividness and energy.

James Watt was equally distinguished as a natural philosopher and chemist; his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic of genius - the union of them for practical application.

And by the influence of heat, light, and electrical powers, there is a constant series of changes; matter assumes new forms, the destruction of one order of beings tends to the conservation of another; solution and consolidation, decay and renovation, are connected; and whilst the parts of the system continue in a state of fluctuation and change, the order and harmony of the whole remain unalterable.