“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun ...”

“The scientific spirit is of more value than its products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

“What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.”

“With theology as a code of dogmas which are to be believed, or at any rate repeated, under penalty of present or future punishment, or as a storehouse of anaesthetics for those who find the pains o...”

“Wherever sufficiently numerous series of the remains of any given group, which has endured for a long space of time, are carefully examined, their morphological relations are never in discordance w...”

“I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.”

“Understanding comes hard to persons of high rank who are accustomed to phony lifestyles that involve no daily work.”

“Creation and destruction are the two ends of the same moment. And everything between the creation and the next destruction is the journey of life.”

“But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn't admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.”