Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.

He who possesses most must be most afraid of loss.

The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee...gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.

I am not to blame for putting forward, in the course of my work on science, any general rule derived from a previous conclusion.

There are many kinds of beauty as people who possess it.

It is the infinite alone that cannot be attained, for if it could it would become finite.

The limiting surface of one thing is the beginning of another.