Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.

Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

[we see that] science is eminently perfectible, and that each theory has constantly to give way to a fresh one.

Voilà à quoi tiennent, non seulement les développements physiques de toute une nation mais sa moralité, sa dignité, ses talents, son sens politique ! Ce n'est qu'une question de molécules...

So, fatality will play me these terrible tricks. The elements themselves conspire to overwhelm me with mortification. Air, fire, and water combine their united efforts to oppose my passage. Well, they shall see what the earnest will of a determined man can do. I will not yield, I will not retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest - man or nature.