The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant that there is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realise.

The facts will eventually test all our theories, and they form, after all, the only impartial jury to which we can appeal.

A laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where nothing profane should be tolerated. I feel less agony at improprieties in churches than in a scientific laboratory.

The world has arisen in some way or another. How it originated is the great question, and Darwin's theory, like all other attempts, to explain the origin of life, is thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has not even made the best conjecture possible in the present state of our knowledge.

Facts are stupid until brought into connection with some general law.

The glacier was God's great plough . . . set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth?

The study of Nature is intercourse with the Highest Mind.