If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.

To measure is to know.

At what time does the dissipation of energy begin?

[Of the ether] it is no greater mystery at all events than the shoemakers' wax.

I have not had a moment's peace or happiness in respect to electromagnetic theory since November 28, 1846. All this time I have been liable to fits of ether dipsomania, kept away at intervals only by rigorous abstention from thought on the subject.

Vortices of pure energy can exist and, if my theories are right, can compose the bodily form of an intelligent species.

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination, a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labour in the minute sifting of numerical results.