Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob’s ladder.
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
The only use of knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present.
A clash of doctrine is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.
From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.
It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts; but until this has occurred, words do not count.
Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open.
Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.
Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life.
I always feel that I have two duties to perform with a parting guest: one, to see that he doesn’t forget anything that is his; the other, to see that he doesn’t take anything that is mine.
There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.
But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing.
Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.
An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.
The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.
You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
War can protect; it cannot create.
Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning.