Practical gentlemen hate uncertainty, balancing of probabilities, skepticism or approximation. They have a number of bitterly satirical comments on persons whose minds are so open that their brains fall out. They are bent on getting to a conclusion. – Max Radin, 1937

A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot…. We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Worship,” The Conduct of Life, 1860

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of clich̩s. РH.L. Mencken, Prejudices, 1925