The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in correcting its mistakes. Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry — is not even a ”subject " — but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning.

The written word endures, the spoken word disappears

People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

Everything we know has its origins in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings.

A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another.

Textbooks, it seems to me, are enemies of education, instruments for promoting dogmatism and trivial learning. They may save the teacher some trouble, but the trouble they inflict on the minds of students is a blight and a curse.

A definition is the start of an argument, not the end of one.