"...that's what's so fine about the natural sciences: they don't wish to prove anything. therefore what breadth of fact and what an immensity for thought! we must treat men like mastodons and crocodiles. does anyone fly into a passion about the horns of the former or the jaws of the latter? show them, stuff them, put them in solution, that's enough, but appreciate them, no. and what are you yourselves, you littled toads?"

(flaubert to louise colet, march 31, 1853)