Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordinary in the process.

But it is not given to every electrician to die in so glorious a manner as the justly envied Richmann.

What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

The more elaborate our means of our common sense is, the less the common sense it becomes.

In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing.

To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.