...there is no absolute scale of size in nature, and the small may be as important, or more so than the great.

Theory is the essence of facts. Without theory scientific knowledge would be only worthy of the madhouse.

Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.

Euclid for children is barbarous.

We do not dwell in the Palace of Truth. But, as was mentioned to me not long since, "There is a time coming when all things shall be found out." I am not so sanguine myself, believing that the well in which Truth is said to reside is really a bottomless pit.

Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, to say nothing of the complexity.

If it is love that makes the world go round, it is self-induction that makes electromagnetic waves go round the world.