“The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to claim a little more...”

“I have never been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham should be refined and polite while a rat-killing match in Whitechapel is low.”

“Science is simply common sense at its best - that is rigidly accurate in observation and merciless to fallacy in logic.”

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettie...”

“To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth. ”

“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”