"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."

"The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties."

"The future of Russia is in its oil and its people."

"The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin."

"I have no need of proof; the laws of nature, unlike the laws of grammar, admit of no exception."