As for the atoms, they have been in far worse rows before they became — Atom

"We can still use the objectifying language of classical physics to make statements about observable facts. For instance, we can say that a photographic plate has been blackened, or that cloud droplets have formed. But we can say nothing about the atoms themselves. And what predictions we base on such findings depend on the way we pose our experimental question, and here the observer has freedom of choice. Naturally, it still makes no difference whether the observer is a man, an animal, or a piece of apparatus, but it is no longer possible to make predictions without reference to the observer or the means of observation."

"If the motion to be discussed here can actually be observed, together with the laws it is expected to obey, then classical thermodynamics can no longer be viewed as applying to regions that can be distinguished even with a microscope, and an exact determination of actual atomic sizes becomes possible. On the other hand, if the prediction of this motion were to be proved wrong, this fact would provide a far-reaching argument against the molecular-kinetic conception of heat."

"In all chemical investigations, it has justly been considered an important object to ascertain the relative weights of the simples which constitute a compound. But unfortunately the enquiry has terminated here; whereas from the relative weights in the mass, the relative weights of the ultimate particles or atoms of the bodies might have been inferred, from which their number and weight in various other compounds would appear, in order to assist and to guide future investigations, and to correct their results. Now it is one great object of this work, to shew the importance and advantage of ascertaining the relative weights of the ultimate particles, both of simple and compound bodies, the number of simple elementary particles which constitute one compound particle, and the number of less compound particles which enter into the formation of one more compound particle. If there are two bodies, A and B, which are disposed to combine, the following is the order in which the combinations may take place, beginning with the most simple: namely, 1 atom of A + 1 atom of B = 1 atom of C, binary 1 atom of A + 2 atoms of B = 1 atom of D, ternary 2 atoms of A + 1 atom of B = 1 atom of E, ternary 1 atom of A + 3 atoms of B = 1 atom of F, quaternary 3 atoms of A and 1 atom of B = 1 atom of G, quaternary"

"[The] structural theory is of extreme simplicity. It assumes that the molecule is held together by links between one atom and the next: that every kind of atom can form a definite small number of such links: that these can be single, double or triple: that the groups may take up any position possible by rotation round the line of a single but not round that of a double link: finally that with all the elements of the first short period [of the periodic table], and with many others as well, the angles between the valencies are approximately those formed by joining the centre of a regular tetrahedron to its angular points. No assumption whatever is made as to the mechanism of the linkage. Through the whole development of organic chemistry this theory has always proved capable of providing a different structure for every different compound that can be isolated. Among the hundreds of thousands of known substances, there are never more isomeric forms than the theory permits."

"Life is a partial, continuous, progressive, multiform and conditionally interactive self-realization of the potentialities of atomic electron states."

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount."