Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side.

Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side.

He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.

He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.

The main fuel to speed the world's progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of read more

The main fuel to speed the world's progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination.

All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.

All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

The well-adjusted make poor prophets.

The well-adjusted make poor prophets.

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.

...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do read more

...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do so.

Constancy is the foundation of virtue.

Constancy is the foundation of virtue.