“In symbols one observes an advantage in discovery which is greatest when they express the exact nature of a thing briefly and, as it were, picture it; then indeed the labor of thought is wonderfully diminished.”

Make me the the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world.

It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.

I am convinced that the unwritten knowledge scattered among men of different callings surpasses in quantity and in importance anything we find in books, and that the greater part of our wealth has yet to be recorded.

Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.

Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

It has long seemed ridiculous to me to suppose that the nature of things has been so poor and stingy that it provided souls only to such a trifling mass of bodies on our globe, like human bodies, when it could have given them to all, without interfering with its other ends.

We never have a full demonstration, although there is always an underlying reason for the truth, even if it is only perfectly understood by God, who alone penetrated the infinite series in one stroke of the mind.

There is a certain destiny of everything, regulated by the foreknowledge and providence of God in His works.

Nothing is accomplished all at once, and it is one of my great maxims, and one of the most completely verified, that Nature makes no leaps: a maxim which I have called the law of continuity.

Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.

The words ‘Here you can find perfect peace’ can be written only over the gates of a cemetery.

For things remain possible, even if God does not choose them. Indeed, even if God does not will something to exist, it is possible for it to exist, since, by its nature, it could exist if God were to will it to exist.

To love is to place happiness in the heart of another.

When God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace. Whoever thinks otherwise, must needs have a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God.

One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.

Therefore, I have attacted [the problem of the catenary] which I had hitherto not attempted, and with my key [the differential calculus] happily opened its secret. Acta eruditorum

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.

Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase.

Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established.

Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself.

God loves us beyond comprehension, and we cannot diminish God’s love for us.

The global environment crisis is, as we say in Tennessee, real as rain, and I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

He is living on a diminishing hope that good things await him in the future. A hope that promises a sense of contentment even though the scars from the past might never fade away.