It is false to suggest that men must turn away from his desires in the interest of a higher duty. Men only responds to duty if he desires to do so. To understand men, you must understand their desires and the relative strength of those desires.

As for earthquakes, though they were still formidable, they were so interesting that men of science could hardly regret them.

Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian.

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

What science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.

The dictum that human nature cannot be changed is one of those tiresome platitudes that conceal from the ignorant the depths of their own ignorance.