It is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, ‘progress’ would become mechanical and trivial.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

America remained a land of promise for lovers of freedom. Even Byron, at a moment when he was disgusted with Napoleon for not committing suicide, wrote an eloquent stanza in praise of Washington.

The white tails of rabbits, according to some theologians, have a purpose, namely to make it easier for sportsmen to shoot them.

The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to be lofty ethic, and to confer an apparently sacred character upon practices which have come down from more ignorant and barbarous times.

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.

Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.