The real history does not get written, because it is not in people's brains but in their nerves and vitals.

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

The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals.

I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming . . . and a little mad.

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

The worship of God is not a rule of safety - it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable.

Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts. It is a way of illuminating the facts.