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

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

In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others.

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

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.

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.

I have procured air [oxygen] ... between five and six times as good as the best common air that I have ever met with.