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.

I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing.

Nothing tends so much to the advancement of knowledge as the application of a new instrument.

When two elements combine and form more than one compound, the masses of one element that react with a fixed mass of the other are in the ratio of small whole numbers.

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

This sentiment of self-contempt is a frequent one in young people of both sexes. Their valuation of themselves varies as much as the barometer, and is as much affected by outward causes.

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.