Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.
In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
When you're average, you're just as close to the bottom as you are the top.
Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.
Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
Common sense is genius in homespun.
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.
An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words.
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.
Without adventure civilization is in full decay.
Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.
