The great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself recreates them.

It's a sort of curious phenomenon that God is somehow not quite as nice as the devil; the devil doesn't punish you for behaving well, but God punishes you for behaving badly.

Satire is not a social dynamite. But it is a social indicator: it shows that new men are knocking at the door.

To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and in every known society practices both together.

The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike. An example is Newton’s thinking of the likeness between the thrown apple and moon sailing majestically in the sky. Hence, the ‘discovery’ of the laws of gravity.

The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well. And having done it well, he loves to do it better.

The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.