Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought.

The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

Most people only do what they are asked to do; success comes to those who do a little more.

The superman is a premature ideal, one that presupposes man.

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

A white lie is always pardonable. But he who tells the truth without compulsion merits no leniency.

Progress celebrates victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.