Joseph John Thomson

“I can see no escape from the conclusion that they are charges of negative electricity carried by particles of matter.”

“To the electron: may it never be of any use to anybody.”

“Could anything at first sight seem more impractical than a body which is so small that its mass is an insignificant fraction of the mass of an atom of hydrogen?”

“This discovery of a particle of matter very much smaller than the atom was the starting point of a new era in physics.”

“As we conquer peak after peak we see in front of us regions of bewitching beauty we had not imagined.”

“We have in the cathode rays matter in a new state, a state in which the subdivision of matter is carried very much further than in the ordinary gaseous state.”

“The electron, invisible to the naked eye, is the smallest particle of matter.”

“Thus the atom is not the ultimate limit to the subdivision of matter.”

“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”

“The optimist fell ten stories, and at each window bar he shouted to his friends, 'All right so far!'”