A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts.

New things are always ugly.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

When they shout “Long live progress,” always ask, “Progress of what?”

Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.

The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.

Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.

How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.

Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.

What one man can invent another can discover.