Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that read more

Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.

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.

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.

Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true read more

Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.

Certes, they been lye to hounds, for an hound when he cometh by the roses, or by other bushes, though read more

Certes, they been lye to hounds, for an hound when he cometh by the roses, or by other bushes, though he may nat pisse, yet wole he heve up his leg and make a countenance to pisse.

Again let us dream where the land lies sunny
And live, like the bees, on our hearts' old honey,
read more

Again let us dream where the land lies sunny
And live, like the bees, on our hearts' old honey,
Away from the world that slaves for money--
Come, journey the way with me.

...originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing.

...originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing.

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural and full of contradictions;
Yet others of read more

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural and full of contradictions;
Yet others of our most romantic schemes
Are something more than fictions.