Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.

If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in, it is the universal validity of the law of causation.

For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.

Education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature.

Matter and force are the two names of the one artist who fashions the living as well as the lifeless.

For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them.

Any one who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the "anticipation of Nature," that is, by the invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable, often had very little foundation to start with; and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in the long run.