The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence.' There is no such mode of existence; every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.

The 'silly question' is the first intimation of some totally novel development.

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish.

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 worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. They can persuade and can be persuaded by the disclosure of alternatives, the better and the worse. Civilization is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative. The recourse to force, however, unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilization, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals. Thus in a live civilization there is always an element of unrest.

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

In order to acquire learning, we must first shake ourselves free of it.