Science is the real moral school; she teaches man the love and respect for the truth, without which all hope is chimerical. - Marcellin Berthelot

There abides in nature a certain form of matter which, being discovered and brought by art to perfection, converts to itself, proportionally, all imperfect bodies that it touches. ...It rested on the indisputable appearance of an indefinite cycle of transformations, reproducing themselves in chemical operations, without either beginning or end.

A new conception of human destiny results from a profound knowledge of the universe and the physical and moral constitution of man, directed by the fundamental notions of universal solidarity between all classes and all nations.

Hence the rôle of savants, as individuals and as a social class, has unceasingly developed in modern states. But our duties towards other men increase in the same ratio, and let it never be forgotten; let it proclaimed in this hall, in this palace of French science.