Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st BaronetHumility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement.
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st BaronetIt is attention, more than any difference between minds and men.-In this is the source of poetic genius, and of the genius of discovery in science.-It was that led Newton to the invention of fluxions, and the discovery of gravitation, and Harvey to find out the circulation of the blood, and Davy to those views which laid the foundation of modern chemistry.
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet