[we see that] science is eminently perfectible, and that each theory has constantly to give way to a fresh one.
Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.
Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. Throw two planets into space, and they will fall one on the other. Place two enemies in the midst of a crowd, and they will inevitably meet; it is a fatality, a question of time; that is all.
Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.
Everything great in science and art is simple. What can be less complicated than the greatest discoveries of humanity – gravitation, the compass, the printing press, the steam engine, the electric telegraph?
Why, you are a man of heart!Sometimes, replied Phileas Fogg, quietly. When I have the time.
The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers – just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians – by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.