We have no assurance that half-truth will make us free.

We have no assurance that half-truth will make us free.

Insanity -- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

Insanity -- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

We cannot hate those who we despise.

We cannot hate those who we despise.

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self read more

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.

We cannot but be astonished at the ease with which men resign themselves to ignorance about what is most important read more

We cannot but be astonished at the ease with which men resign themselves to ignorance about what is most important for them to know; and we may be certain that they are determined to remain invincibly ignorant if they once come to consider it as axiomatic that there are no absolute principles.

Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a read more

Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and read more

The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. read more

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

Passion holds up the botton of the world, while genius paints its roof.

Passion holds up the botton of the world, while genius paints its roof.