Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.

No religion can be considered in abstraction from its followers, or even from its various types of followers.

Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.

The preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.

Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.