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

Oh, one world at a time! – Henry David Thoreau, when asked about afterlife

Novelties please less than they impress. – Byron, Don Juan, 1824