Without initiation into the scientific spirit one is not in possession of the best tools which humanity has so far devised for effectively directed reflection. One in that case not merely conducts inquiry and learning without the use of the best instruments, but fails to understand the full meaning of knowledge.

There is nothing left worth preserving in the notions of unseen powers, controlling human destiny, to which obedience and worship are due.

Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.

The primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education.

Nature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home.

But the individual butterfly or earthquake remains just the unique existence which it is. We forget in explaining its occurrence that it is only the occurrence that is explained, not the thing itself.

Independent self-reliant people would be a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future where people will be defined by their associations.