Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. 

The atavistic urge toward danger persists and its satisfaction is called adventure.

The unknown is the largest need of the intellect.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable desire to seek the truth.

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure.

How gloriously legible are the constellations of the heavens!

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

There are truths that prove their discoverers witless.

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star.