Knowledge-it excites prejudices to call it science-is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.

I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.

The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.

Science is the topography of ignorance. From a few elevated points we triangulate vast spaces, inclosing infinite unknown details. We cast the lead, and draw up a little sand from abysses we may never reach with our dredges.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

Blood is a destiny. One's genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry.

For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part.