...the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge.

The tragedy of the world is that those who are imaginative have but slight experience, and those who are experienced have feeble imaginations.

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.

Every epoch has its character determined by the way its population reacts to the material events which they encounter.

Seek simplicity, then distrust.

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. It is in a way the most civilised of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought.

There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.