Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.
There are three stages of scientific discovery: first people deny it is true; then they deny it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.
I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.
How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.
True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.
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Die gefährlichste Weltanschauung ist die Weltanschauung derer, die die Welt nie angeschaut haben. (The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world)
The most dangerous worldviews are the worldviews of those who have never viewed the world.
If we glance at the most important revolutions in history, we see at once that the greatest number of these originated in the periodical revolutions on the human mind.
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.
There are some races more cultured and advanced and ennobled by education than others; but there are no races nobler than others. All are equally destined for freedom.
People often say that I'm curious about too many things at once... But can you really forbid a man from harbouring a desire to know and embrace everything that surrounds him?
Wherever the citizen becomes indifferent to his fellows, so will the husband be to his wife, and the father of a family toward the members of his household.
Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury.
Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet comforting and strengthening influence on the wearied mind, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths.
Insight into universal nature provides an intellectual delight and sense of freedom that no blows of fate and no evil can destroy.
War seems to be one of the most salutary phenomena for the culture of human nature; and it is not without regret that I see it disappearing more and more from the scene.
Collaboration operates through a process in which the successful intellectual achievements of one person arouse the intellectual passions and enthusiasms of others.
It is usually more important how a man meets his fate than what it is.
Language makes infinite use of finite media.
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take with us.
At no other time has Nature concentrated such a wealth of valuable nourishment into such a small space as in the cocoa bean.
With most animals, as with man, the alertness of the senses diminishes after years of work, after domestic habits and progress of culture.
Before being free, it is necessary to be just
The philosophical study of nature endeavors, in the the vicissitudes of phenomena, to connect the present with the past.
Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.
Nature can be so soothing to the tormented mind
Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people.
The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.
 that whilst the number of accurate instruments was daily increasing, we were still ignorant ){kind=small}
I saw with regret, (and all scientific men have shared this feeling) that whilst the number of accurate instruments was daily increasing, we were still ignorant
Time is the most important thing in human life, for what is pleasure after the departure of time? and the most consolatory, since pain, when pain has passed, is nothing. Time is the wheel-track in which we roll on towards eternity, conducting us to the Incomprehensible. In its progress there is a ripening power, and it ripens us the more, and the more powerfully, when we duly estimate it. Listen to its voice, do not waste it, but regard it as the highest finite good, in which all finite things are resolved.
Petroleum is the product of a distillation from great depth and issues from the primitive rocks beneath which the forces of all volcanic action lie.
Statistical projections which speak to the senses without fatiguing the mind, possess the advantage of fixing the attention on a great number of important facts.
The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on general natural physics was that directed to the advances of chemistry ; a science for which this race created a new era.(...) Besides making laudatory mention of that which we owe to the natural science of the Arabs in both the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we must likewise allude to their contributions in separate paths of intellectual development to the general mass of mathematical science.
It is a proverbial expression that every man is the maker of his own fortune, and we usually regard it as implying that every man by his folly or wisdom prepares good or evil for himself. But we may view it in another light, namely, that we may so accommodate ourselves to the dispositions of Providence as to be happy in our lot, whatever may be its privations.
