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I will point out a curious, inveterate, and widespread illusion — the illusion that our earthly bodies are a kind of norm of humanity, so that ethereal bodies, if such there be, must correspond to them in shape and size.

— William Crookes Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)

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More quotes by William Crookes

It can scarcely be denied that the fundamental phenomena which first led mankind into chemical inquiries are those of combustion.

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)

To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to bring reproach on science.

Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1898)

Our alleged facts might be true in all kinds of ways without contradicting any truth already known.

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)

May not our boasted knowledge be simply conditioned by accidental environments, and thus be liable to a large element of subjectivity hitherto unsuspected and scarcely possible to eliminate?

Address to the Society for Psychical Research (1897)

A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable as the direct action of mind on mind.

Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1898)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Crookes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.