“For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.”

When we make the cerebral state the beginning of an action, and in no sense the condition of a perception, we place the perceived images of things outside the image of our body, and thus replace perception within the things themselves.

ACT as men of thought; THINK as men of action.

And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them.

In short, intelligence, considered in what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make tools, and of indefinitely varying the manufacture.

The universe… is a machine for the making of gods.

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.

Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.

Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality.

The emotion felt by a man in the presence of nature certainly counts for something in the origin of religions.

Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?

Instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even constructing organized instruments; intelligence perfected is the faculty of making and using unorganized instruments.

Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed.

Divine love is not something belonging to God: it is God Himself.

It seems that laughter needs an echo.

Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.

There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.

Mobilizing all the youth to develop Africa. It’s our time. I hope the world is paying attention.

A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.

A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.

The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race: that all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all the children of earth.

It’s important to get in the habit of growing as a human being, developing and refining leadership and management skills and entrepreneurial instincts and changing to accommodate the times.

I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.

To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry.