Do not say hypothesis, and even less theory: say way of thinking.

We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves.

It is astonishing how much the word infinitely is misused: everything is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely better, etc. The concept must have something pleasing about it, or its misuse could not have become so general.

One has to do something new in order to see something new.

We have to believe that everything has a cause, as the spider spins its web in order to catch flies. But it does this before it knows there are such things as flies.

They do not think, therefore they are not.

There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.

What we have to discover for ourselves leaves behind in our mind a pathway that can be used on another occasion.

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.