No one can take from us the joy of the first becoming aware of something, the so-called discovery. But if we also demand the honor, it can be utterly spoiled for us, for we are usually not the first. What does discovery mean, and who can say that he has discovered this or that? After all it's pure idiocy to brag about priority; for it's simply unconscious conceit, not to admit frankly that one is a plagiarist.

It is a great pleasure to transport one's-self into the spirit of the times; to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last carried it.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.

It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.

Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value.