If a man devotes himself to the promotion of science, he is firstly opposed, and then he is informed that his ground is already occupied. At first men will allow no value to what we tell them, and then they behave as if they knew it all themselves.
Nature fills all space with her limitless productivity. If we observe merely our own earth, everything that we call evil and unfortunate is so because Nature cannot provide room for everything that comes into existence, and still less endow it with permanence.
Everything that comes into being seeks room for itself and desires duration: hence it drives something else from its place and shortens its duration.
There is so much of cryptogamy in phanerogamy that centuries will not decipher it.
What a true saying it is that he who wants to deceive mankind must before all things make absurdity plausible.