Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words

Look at the stars and not down at your own feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favor of the belief which he finds in himself.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas and the truth of prophecy has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover and with the conviction of a geometrician.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

Those are most desirous of honor and glory who cry out the loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

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