"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."

“The word truth can not be used outside of science without a misuse of terms.”

“Each one of us, whatever may have been his individual initiative, ought also to attribute a considerable portion of his success to his contemporaries who are working at the same time as himself at the great common task.”

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

“Gentlemen, since the first half of the century that has terminated, without going further back, the world has strangely altered. The men of my generation have seen come into play, beside and above the nature known since antiquity, if not an antithesis, a counter-nature... but a superior nature, and to some extent transcendent, where the power of indıvidual is centupled by the transformation of forces until then unknown or not understood, borrowed from light, magnetism, and electricity.”

“In fact, what we are can only be attributed for a small part to our labour and personal individuality, because we owe it almost entirely to our forefathers, both of blood and mind.”

“Science carries its legitimate pretensions further. To-day it claims the material, intellectual, and moral direction of society. Under its impulse modern civilisation marches with an increasingly rapid stride.”