If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

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 seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.