Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.

Reason and action are congeneric and homogenous, two aspects of the same phenomenon.

Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, read more

Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, of degrees of awareness.

Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, read more

Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.

When scientific doctrines are mixed up with religious tenets, the same lifeless dogmatism will commonly benumb them both.

When scientific doctrines are mixed up with religious tenets, the same lifeless dogmatism will commonly benumb them both.

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is read more

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.

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.

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- read more

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.