I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them.

All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided.

In all cases positive palaeontological evidence may be implicitly trusted; negative evidence is worthless, as experience has so often shown.

When grand plans for scientific and defence technologies are made, do the people in power think about the sacrifices the people in the laboratories and fields have to make?

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.