Experiments are mediators between nature and idea.

Normally, people believe that, if they hear just words, that these words must lead to some thought.

It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love

To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.

Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct; but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

All that is alive tends toward color, individuality, specificity, effectiveness and opacity. All that is done with life inclines toward knowledge, abstraction, generality transfiguration and transparency.