We cannot quench [the] desires of the intellect. They are stimulated by the phenomena which surround us in our present state of existence as the body is by oxygen; and in the presence of these phenomena man thirsts for knowledge as an Arab longs for water when he smells the Nile. In Royal Institute of Great Britain

Lectures on Education: Delivered at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, On the Importance of the Study of Physics (p. 175), John W. Parker & Son. 1854