Heroes of physics, Argonauts of our time
Who leaped the mountains, who crossed the seas...
You have confirmed in uncomfortable places
What Newton knew without leaving his study.

Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1734), Quatrième discours: de la Modération (1738). Quoted in and trans. J. L. Heilbron, Weighing Imponderables and Other Quantitative Science around 1800 (1993)