Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is ecstatic in enjoyment, perennial in fame, unlimited in space, and infinite in duration. In the performance of its sacred offices, it fears no danger, spares no expense, looks in the volcano, dives into the ocean, perforates the earth, wings its flight into the skies, explores sea and land, contemplates the distant, examines the minute, comprehends the great, ascends the sublime--no place too remote for its grasp, no height to exalted for its reach.

- De Witt Clinton (1769-1828)