A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.

Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and above all others, the most useful.

I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly.

Reprove your friend in secret and praise him openly.

Experiment is the sole interpreter of the artifices of Nature.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.