Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.
You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes.
It is natural to think that an abstract science cannot be of much importance in affairs of human life, because it has omitted from its consideration everything of real interest.
Youth is life as yet unblemished by much tragedy, but hardly by TV.
Problems are only opportunities in disquise.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry charges in a battle – they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
The main importance of Francis Bacon’s influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.
The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.
What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.
The purpose of education is not to fill a vessel but to kindle a flame.
Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.
The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while.
Do not teach too many subjects and what you teach, teach thoroughly.
People make the mistake of talking about ‘natural laws.’ There are no natural laws. There are only temporary habits of nature.
The vastest knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis in ancient India; and science in its most advanced stage now is closer to Vedanta than ever before.
What we perceive as the present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation.
Systems, scientific or philosophic, come and go. Each method of limited understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is a triumphant success: in its decay it is an obstructive nuisance.
The ultimate metaphysical ground is the creative advance into novelty.
The preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them.