Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberat…

The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical …

In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out…

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought is sexton to all the world.

The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.