"It was clear that in the United States there was a development not of the best, but of the middle and worst sides of European civilization; the notorious general voting, the tendency to politics... al…"

"I consider it my duty to be useful to my country."

"My table will serve as an instrument for discovering new facts and for correcting old ones."

"The greatest value of a scientific discovery is not so much in the discovery itself as in the stimulus it provides for further investigation."

"I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."