"The edifice of science not only requires material, but also a plan. Without the material, the plan alone is but a castle in the air—a mere possibility; whilst the material without a plan is but useles…"

"I consider it my duty to be useful to my country."

"I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."

"To conceive, understand, and grasp the whole symmetry of the scientific edifice, including its unfinished portions, is equivalent to tasting that enjoyment only conveyed by the highest forms of beauty…"

"In science we must all submit not to what seems to us attractive from one point of view or another, but to what represents an agreement between theory and experiment."