... we might say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood the springs of water.

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Being engulfed in practice without delicate knowledge related to it, is in many ways like entering a ship without knowing where it is headed.

Truth is so excellent, that if it praises but small things they become noble.

Nature is constrained by the cause of her laws which dwell inborn in her. Variant: Nature is constrained by the order of her own law which lives and works within her.

The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance, excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays.

Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness.