Great Throughts Treasury

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."

"Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it. "

"It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments. Work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated. "

"Just remember - when you think all is lost, the future remains."

"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these."

"The mathematician's subject is the most curious of all—there is none in which truth plays such odd pranks. It has the most elaborate and the most fascinating technique, and gives unrivaled openings for the display of sheer professional skill."

"It is of interest to speculate upon the possibility of proving that such extreme altitudes had been reached even if they actually were attained. In general, the proving would be a difficult matter. Thus, even a mass of flash powder, arranged to be ignited automatically after a long interval of time, were projected vertically upward, the light would at best be very faint, and it would be difficult to foretell, even approximately, the direction in which it would be most likely to appear. The only reliable procedure would be to send the smallest mass of flash powder possible to the dark surface of the moon when in conjunction (i.e. the new “moon”), in such a way that it would be ignited on impact. The light would be visible in a powerful telescope."

"There can be no thought of finishing, for aiming at the stars, both literally and figuratively, is the work of generations, but no matter how much progress one makes there is always the thrill of just beginning. "

"How many more years I shall be able to work on the problem I do not know; I hope, as long as I live. There can be no thought of finishing, for 'aiming at the stars' both literally and figuratively, is a problem to occupy generations, so that no matter how much progress one makes, there is always the thrill of just beginning."