Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness read more

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

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.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you read more

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the read more

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.

Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.

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.

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.

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, read more

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.