No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.

Wisdom is the intelligence of the system as a whole.

It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.

Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.

Desired substance, things, patterns, or sequences of experience that are in some sense "good" for the organism - items of diet, conditions of life, temperature, entertainment, sex, and so forth - are never such that more of the something is always better than less of the something. Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.

The rules of the universe that we think we know are buried deep in our processes of perception.

Multiple descriptions are better than one.