Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

[In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

Learning is often spoken of as if we are watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read, and then, when occasion arises, we select the right page to read aloud to the universe.

Some of the finest moral intuitions come to quite humble people. The visiting of lofty ideas doesn't depend on formal schooling.

Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.