“Institutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity, and the less they are deflected by the consideration of immediacy of application”

There are men who teach best by not teaching at all.

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent.

As to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex

Science, in the very act of solving problems, creates more of them.

At no period of [Michael Faraday’s] unmatched career was he interested in utility.

The real enemy is the man who tries to mold the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.

We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions .

The more likely they are to contribute not only to human welfare, but to the equally important satisfaction of intellectual interest

The new naval treaty permits the United States to spend a billion dollars on warships-a sum greater than has been accumulated by all our endowed institutions of learning in their entire history.

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from being too complacent or self-satisfied; they are, if sound

Unintelligence could go no further! … In Great Britain, the situation is similar. … Until the figures are reversed, … nations deceive themselves as to what they care about most.

You have had your last bad meal. But, you have also heard your last honest compliment, and you have lost your last true friend.

The spearhead of progress. If they are fundamentally wrong, free discussion will in time put an end to them.

The student is to collect and evaluate facts. The facts are locked up in the patient.

The world in which we live is the only world about which our senses can testify.

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education.