It is significant that people who refuse to tell their children fairytales do not fear that the children will believe in princes and princesses, but that they will believe in witches and bogeys.

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.

The historian does not locate known facts in a hypothetical, general pattern of processes; his aim is to link fact to fact, one unique knowable event to another individual one that begot it.

Common-sense knowledge is prompt, categorical, and inexact.

One can bear anything of which one is able to conceive.

Nature, as man has always known it, he knows no more. Since he has learned to esteem signs above symbols, to suppress his emotional reactions in favor of practical ones and make use of nature instead of holding so much of it sacred, he has altered the face, if not the heart, of reality.