Quote of the day

"These thoughts, my dear friend, are many of them crude and hasty, and if I were merely ambitious of aquiring some Reputation in Philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, 'till corrected and improved by Time and farther Experience. But even short Hints, and imperfect Experiments in any new Branch of Science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good Effect, in exciting the attention of the Ingenious to the Subject, and so becoming the Occasion of more exact disquisitions (as I before observed) and more complete Discoveries, you are at Liberty to communicate this Paper to whom you please; it being of more Importance that Knowledge should increase, than that your Friend should be thought an accurate Philosopher." - Ben Franklin, letter to Peter Collinson (1753)

Quoted by Steven Johnson in The Invention of Air.