When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

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.

Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.

Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

Ignorance and superstition ever bear a close and mathematical relation to each other.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning read more

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.

There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind...

There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind...

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be so sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure read more

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be so sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure as he is, he shall shoot higher than he who aims at a bush.