Nothing in the whole system of nature is isolated or unimportant. The fall of a leaf and the motion of a planet are governed by the same laws. . . . It is in the study of objects considered trivial and unworthy of notice by the casual observer that genius finds the most important and interesting phenomena. It was in the investigation of the varying colors of the soap-bubble that Newton detected the remarkable fact of the fits of easy reflection and easy refraction presented by a ray of light in its passage through space, and upon which he established the fundamental principle of the present generalization of the undulatory theory of light. . . . The microscopic organization of animals and plants is replete with the highest instruction; and, surely, in the language of one of the fathers of modern physical science, "nothing can be unworthy of being investigated by man which was thought worthy of being created by GOD."
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1852, p. 15.

Every well established truth is an addition to the sum of human power, and though it may not find an immediate application to the economy of every day life, we may safely commit it to the stream of time, in the confident anticipation that the world will not fail to realize its beneficial results.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1856, p. 20.

Nearly all the great inventions which distinguish the present century are the results, immediately or remotely, of the application of scientific principles to practical purposes, and in most cases these applications have been suggested by the student of nature, whose primary object was the discovery of abstract truth.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1859, p. 15.

The incessant call in this country for practical results and the confounding of mechanical inventions with scientific discoveries has a very prejudicial influence on science. . . . A single scientific principle may include a thousand applications and is therefore though if not of immediate use of vastly more importance even in a practical view.
            Presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [August 22, 1850], in Henry Papers, vol. 8, pp. 101-102.

How contemptable [sic] in the eyes of the heroes and statesmen of antiquity would have appeared the labours of that man who devoted his life to investigate the properties of the magnet; little could they anticipate that this humble mineral in after ages was destined to change the form and condition of human society in every quarter of the globe.
            Introductory Lecture on Chemistry, [January-March, 1832], in Henry Papers, vol. 1, p. 396.

All knowledge is profitable; profitable in its ennobling effect on the character, in the pleasure it imparts in its acquisition, as well as in the power it gives over the operations of mind and of matter. All knowledge is useful; every part of this complex system of nature is connected with every other. Nothing is isolated. The discovery of to-day, which appears unconnected with any useful process, may, in the course of a few years, become the fruitful source of a thousand inventions.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1851, p. 10.

[James] Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other[s], and that the tendency of all is to improve the human mind, and to give it new sources of power and enjoyment.
            "On the Smithsonian Institution," August 1853, Proceedings of the Third Session of the American Association for the Advancement of Education (Newark, N.J., 1854), p. 101.

Man does not live by bread alone, there are other wants to be supplied, and even in a practical point of view, a single thought may be fraught with a thousand useful inventions.
            Presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Education, August 1853, Proceedings of the Third Session of the American Association for the Advancement of Education (Newark, N.J., 1854), p. 29.

Astronomy was not studied by Kepler, Galileo, or Newton for the practical applications which might result from it, but to enlarge the bounds of knowledge, to furnish new objects of thought and contemplation in regard to the universe of which we form a part; yet how remarkable the influence which this science, apparently so far removed from the sphere of our material interests, has exerted on the destinies of the world!
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1859, p. 15.

There are no royal roads to knowledge, and we can only advance to new and important truths along the rugged path of experience, guided by cautious induction.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1856, p. 36.

The operations of the universe are unlimited, and in the great book of nature, man has scarcely read more than the title page or the preface.
            Remarks at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the American Museum of Natural History (New York), June 2, 1874, in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 115.

No country in the world is so much indebted for its progress in power and intelligence to science than ours, and yet no country does so little to encourage or advance it.
            Remarks at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the American Museum of Natural History (New York), June 2, 1874, in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 113.

In this country, science is almost exclusively prosecuted by those engaged in the laborious and exhaustive employment of imparting instruction. Science among us brings comparatively little emolument and is accompanied with but little honor.
            On the Importance of the Cultivation of Science: Letter to the Committee of Arrangements of the Farewell Banquet to Professor Tyndall [February-April 1873], in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 106.

There is poetry in science and the cultivation of the immagination [sic] is an essential prerequsite [sic] to the successful investigation of nature.
            Presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [August 22, 1850], in Henry Papers, vol. 8, p. 89.

It [science] offers unbounded fields of pleasurable, healthful, and ennobling exercise to the restless intellect of man, expanding his powers and enlarging his conceptions of the wisdom, the energy, and the beneficence of the Great Ruler of the universe.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1859, p. 17.

The man imbued with the proper spirit of science does not seek for immediate pecuniary reward from the practical applications of his discoveries, but derives sufficient gratification from his pursuit and the consciousness of enlarging the bounds of human contemplation, and the magnitude of human power, and leaves to others to gather the golden fruit he may strew along his pathway.
            On the Importance of the Cultivation of Science: Letter to the Committee of Arrangements of the Farewell Banquet to Professor Tyndall [February-April 1873], in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 105.

The great object of human thought is the discovery of truth or, in other words, to arrive at conceptions and expressions of things which shall agree with the nature of things.
            Lecture on Geology and Revelation, ca. 1840s, in Arthur Molella et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 24.

A universe without law would be a universe without order, without the possibility of science, and the manifestations of an intelligent governor and creator.
            Presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [August 22, 1850], in Henry Papers, vol. 8, p. 99.

Placed in a universe of constant change, on an isolated globe surrounded by distant celestial objects on all sides, subjected to influences of various kinds, it is a sublime occupation to measure the earth and weigh the planets, to predict their changes, and even to discover the materials of which they are composed; to investigate the causes of the tempest and volcano; to bring the lightning from the clouds; to submit it to experiment by which it shall reveal its character; and to estimate the size and weight of those invisible atoms which constitute the universe of things.
            On the Importance of the Cultivation of Science: Letter to the Committee of Arrangements of the Farewell Banquet to Professor Tyndall [February-April 1873], in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 104.

All parts of the material universe are in constant motion and though some of the changes may appear to be cyclical, nothing ever exactly returns, so far as human experience extends, to precisely the same condition.
            Remarks at the Grave of Joseph Priestley, [July 1874], in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 119.

If, again with the light of science, we trace forward into the future the condition of our globe, we are compelled to admit that it cannot always remain in its present condition; that in time, the store of potential energy which now exists in the sun and in the bodies of celestial space which may fall into it will be dissipated in radiant heat, and consequently the earth, from being the theatre of life, intelligence, of moral emotions, must become a barren waste.
            Remarks at the Grave of Joseph Priestley, [July 1874], in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 120.