Only he who finds empiricism irksome is driven to method.

Plants and flowers of the commonest kind can form a pleasing diary, because nothing which calls back to us the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant.

nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.

I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

The few of understanding, vision rare, Who veiled not from the herd their hearts, but tried, Poor generous fools, to lay their feelings bare, Them have men always burnt and crucified.

I have learned much from disease which life could have never taught me anywhere else.

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.