The doctrine of transmigration… was a means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the cosmos to man; … none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the grounds of inherent absurdity.

It is better to read a little and thoroughly than cram a crude undigested mass into my head, though it be great in quantity.

Rome is the one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist and must, as a matter of life and death, the progress of science and modern civilization

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity.

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

There are some men who are counted great because they represent the actuality of their own age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said: "he expressed everybody's thoughts better than anyone." But there are other men who attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of their own day and magically reflect the future. They express the thoughts which will be everybody's two or three centuries after them. Such as one was Descartes.

History warns us that it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.