The history of this paper suggests that highly speculative investigations, especially by an unknown author, are best brought before the world through… - John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

The only merit of which I personally am conscious was that of having pleased myself by my studies, and any results that may be due to my researches were owing to the fact that it has been a pleasure for me to become a physicist.

Without encroaching upon grounds appertaining to the theologian and the philosopher, the domain of natural sciences is surely broad enough to satisfy the wildest ambition of its devotees. In other departments of human life and interest, true progress is rather an article of faith than a rational belief; but in science a retrograde movements is, from the nature of the case, almost impossible. Increasing knowledge brings with it increasing power, and great as are the triumphs of the present century, we may well believe that they are but a foretaste of what discovery and invention have yet in store for mankind. … The work may be hard, and the discipline severe; but the interest never fails, and great is the privilege of achievement.

In science by a fiction as remarkable as any to be found in law, what once been published even though it be in the Russian language, is spoken of as known, and it is too often forgotten that the rediscovery in the library may be a more difficult and uncertain process than the first discovery in the laboratory.