Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.

Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song; and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.

You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.

You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.