The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.

Every really new idea looks crazy at first.

The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization; and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.

The defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change.

The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors.

The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while.

Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.