[T]here are depths of thousands of miles which are hidden from our inquiry. The only tidings we have from those unfathomable regions are by means of volcanoes, those burning mountains that seem to discharge their materials from the lowest abysses of the earth.

A volcano may be considered as a cannon of immense size.

All the sciences are, in some measure, linked with each other, and before the one is ended, the other begins.

And still they gazed and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.

As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.

If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human mind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.

The world is like a vast sea: mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom. … [T]he sciences serve us for oars.

We may affirm of Mr. Buffon, that which has been said of the chemists of old; though he may have failed in attaining his principal aim, of establishing a theory, yet he has brought together such a multitude of facts relative to the history of the earth, and the nature of its fossil productions, that curiosity finds ample compensation, even while it feels the want of conviction.

Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.

When we take a slight survey of the surface of our globe a thousand objects offer themselves which, though long known, yet still demand our curiosity.

Goldsmith: If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go mad.
Johnson: I doubt that.
Goldsmith: Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated.
Thrale: You had better prove it before you put it into your book on natural history. You may do it in my stable if you will.
Johnson: Nay, sir, I would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them; his erroneous assertions would then fall upon himself: and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular.

The world is a museum in which all men are destined to be employed and amused, and they cannot be too much interested in the objects around them. Goldsmith the elegant imitator of Buffon, says “The mere uninformed spectator passes on in gloomy solitude; while the naturalist in every plant, in every insect, and in every pebble, finds something to entertain his curiosity and excite his speculation.”