From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.

Almost all education has a political motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious or even social, in the competition with other groups. It is this motive, in the main, which determines the subjects taught, the knowledge offered and the knowledge withheld, and also decides what mental habits the pupils are expected to acquire. Hardly anything is done to foster the inward growth of mind and spirit; in fact, those who have had the most education are very often atrophied in their mental and spiritual life.

... mathematical knowledge ... is, in fact, merely verbal knowledge. "3" means "2+1", and "4" means "3+1". Hence it follows (though the proof is long) that "4" means the same as "2+2". Thus mathematical knowledge ceases to be mysterious.

Meantime, the world in which we exist has other aims. But it will pass away, burnt up in the fire of its own hot passions; and from its ashes will spring a new and younger world, full of fresh hope, woth the light of morning in its eyes.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.