“Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor”

Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.

A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf – at any rate it is safer from criticism.

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.

Failure is the true test of greatness

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?

Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.

What is an atheist, but one who does not, or will not, see in the universe a ruling principle of love; and what a misanthrope, but one who does not, or will not, see in man a ruling principle of kindness?

An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.

Ignorance is the parent of fear.

Every economic opinion is associated with a set of assumptions.

It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.

Begin challenging your own assumptions.

There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in. If you challenge your own, you won’t be so quick to accept the unchallenged assumptions of others.