I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the ideas of those facts in human heads.

Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continually comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.

Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

Even under the most favorable circumstances no mortal can be asked to seize the truth in its wholeness or at its center.

Children are natural mythologists: they beg to be told tales, and love not only to invent but to enact falsehoods.