I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of all sound speculation in dynamical science. The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute negation of automatic commencement or automatic maintenance of life.
Lord KelvinNothing can be more fatal to progress than a too confident reliance on mathematical symbols; for the student is only too apt to take the easier course, and consider the formula not the fact as the physical reality.
Lord KelvinAccurate 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.
Lord KelvinThe fact that mathematics does such a good job of describing the Universe is a mystery that we don't understand. And a debt that we will probably never be able to repay.
Lord KelvinOverwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us... the atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words.
Lord KelvinSuppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water; then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter throughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if then you took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marked molecules.
Lord Kelvin