As Soon As We Abandon Our Own

There Is A Possibility In Human Minds Of Something Mysterious As The Night-wind, Deep As The Sea, Calm As The Stars, And Strong As Death, A Mystic Contemplation, The “intellectual Love Of God.” Those Who Have Known It Cannot Believe In Wars Any Longer, Or In Any Kind Of Hot Struggle. If I Could Give To Others What Has Come To Me In This Way, I Could Make Them Too Feel The Futility Of Fighting. But I Do Not Know How To Communicate It: When I Speak, They Stare, Applaud, Or Smile, But Do Not Understand.

Man Is A Credulous Animal, And Must Believe Something; In The Absence Of Good Grounds For Belief, He Will Be Satisfied With Bad Ones.

But As The Work Proceeded I Was Continually Reminded Of The Fable About The Elephant And The Tortoise. Having Constructed An Elephant Upon Which The Mathematical World Could Rest, I Found The Elephant Tottering, And Proceeded To Construct A Tortoise To Keep The Elephant From Falling. But The Tortoise Was Not More Secure Than The Elephant, And After Some Twenty Years Of Very Arduous Toil, I Came To The Conclusion That There Was Nothing More That I Could Do In The Way Of Making Mathematical Knowledge Indubitable.

The Root Of The Matter Is A Very Simple And Old Fashioned Thing... Love Or Compassion. If You Feel This, You Have A Motive For Existence, A Guide For Action, A Reason For Courage, An Imperative Necessity For Intellectual Honesty.

When People Begin To Philosophize They Seem To Think It Necessary To Make Themselves Artificially Stupid.