The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobodys word about them. – Henry Bolingbroke
My friends, whoever has had experience of evils knows how whenever a flood of ills comes upon mortals, a man fears everything but whenever a divine force cheers on our voyage, then we believe that the same fate will always blow fair. – Aeschylus
Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation? our life a custom, and our body borrowed, like a beggar’s dinner, from a hundred charities? – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims, 1876
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces – in nature, in society, in man himself. – Leon Trotsky
