It has been said that figures rule the world; maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1830, translated

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. – Isaac Newton (1642–1727), spoken the evening before his death

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something. – Auguste Strindberg, Miss Julie, 1888