The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. 

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

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

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

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

There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

The atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

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.