“In the future, there will be opened a gateway and a road to a large and excellent science into which minds more piercing than mine shall penetrate to recesses still deeper.”

That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false.

See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.

The Divine intellect indeed knows infinitely more propositions.

To be humane, we must ever be ready to pronounce that wise, ingenious and modest statement ‘I do not know’.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.

To be humane, we must ever be ready to pronounce that wise, ingenious and modest statement ‘I do not know’.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze.

We see only the simple motion of descent, since that other circular one common to the Earth, the tower, and ourselves remains imperceptible.

What greater stupidity can be imagined than that of calling jewels, silver, and gold “precious,” and earth and soil “base”?

I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for and so novel.

I entertain no doubts as to the truth of the transfinites, which I have recognized with God’s help.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters.

You can’t teach anybody anything, only make them realize the answers are already inside them.

Holy Writ was intended to teach men how to go to Heaven not how the heavens go.

Philosophy itself cannot but benefit from our disputes, for if our conceptions prove true, new achievements will be made; if false, their refutation will further confirm the original doctrines.

Man is, beyond dispute, the most excellent of created beings, and the vilest animal is a dog; but the sages agree that a grateful dog is better than an ungrateful man.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

No one wants to be excelled by his relatives.

There may be one fault in a man that conceals a thousand qualities, or one excellence that conceals a thousand faults. The little indicates much.

I don’t pretend there aren’t biological differences, but I don’t believe the desire for leadership is hardwired biology, not the desire to win or excel. I believe that it’s socialization, that we’re socializing our daughters to nurture and our boys to lead.

The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.

A centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second class people may perform first class work.