The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once. – Rene Descartes
I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery. – Rene Descartes
I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error. – Rene Descartes
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. – Rene Descartes
The apothegm is the most portable form of Truth…. It is thus that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly expended in the air. – William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods a
Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In letters we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires… – Elizabeth Hardwick