An impossibility does not disturb us until its accomplishment shows what fools we were. – Henry S. Haskins

Three passions, simple but overwhelming, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. – Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, 1967

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. – Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675 (“Bernard of Chartres used

[A] morning-land full of immeasurable hopes encircled him; he stripped his breast, threw himself all aglow into the dripping grass, washed (but not with any higher purpose than girls have) his firm face with liquid June-snow… – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,