Delight at having understood a very abstract and obscure system leads most people to believe in the truth of what it demonstrates.

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

I have often noticed that when people come to understand a mathematical proposition in some other way than that of the ordinary demonstration, they promptly say, "Oh, I see. That's how it must be." This is a sign that they explain it to themselves from within their own system.

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

People who have read a good deal rarely make great discoveries. I do not say this in excuse of laziness, but because invention presupposes an extensive independent contemplation of things.