It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both read more

It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the marketplace and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.

You want to hear about insanity? I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico. At the Mexico City read more

You want to hear about insanity? I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico. At the Mexico City airport, I decided I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing on takeoff. My body... my liver... okay, my brain... went.

Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the read more

Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.

Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance read more

Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed.

You will not become a saint through other people's sins.

You will not become a saint through other people's sins.

It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float read more

It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float and wander and roam, time for the individual to descend into the depths of his or her psyche, to be available to barely audible signals rustling for attention. Long periods of time may pass in which nothing seems to be happening. But we know that kind of space must be created if the mind is to leap out of its accustomed ruts, to part from the mechanical, the known, the familiar, the standard, and generate a leap into the new.

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which read more

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape. - Aphorisms and Reflections.

Dare to be wrong and to dream.

Dare to be wrong and to dream.

...definitions are temporary verbalizations of concepts, and concepts- particularly difficult concepts- are usually revised repeatedly as our knowledge and understanding read more

...definitions are temporary verbalizations of concepts, and concepts- particularly difficult concepts- are usually revised repeatedly as our knowledge and understanding grows.