"Every attempt to employ mathematical methods in the study of chemical questions must be considered profoundly irrational and contrary to the
spirit of chemistry.... if mathematical analysis should ever hold a prominent place in chemistry -- an aberration which is happily almost impossible -- it would occasion a rapid and widespread degeneration of that science."
-- Auguste Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, 1830

"Chemistry is all about getting lucky..." -Robert Curl

It is disconcerting to reflect on the number of students we have flunked in chemistry for not knowing what we later found to be untrue. --quoted in Robert L. Weber, Science With a Smile (1992)