The brain, having never taken a course in philosophy, is the ultimate pragmatist; what is true is what works. Like any successful oddsmaker, the brain is a predictor of probabilities, not a stickler for the perfect answer.

Every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers end.

Certainty and similar states of ‘knowing what we know’ arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason.

They are proud in humility, proud that they are not proud.

Naught so sweet as melancholy.

One was never married, and that’s his hell; another is, and that’s his plague.

Tobacco, divine, rare superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all panaceas, potable gold and philosopher’s stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases.

He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.

Employment, which Galen calls ‘Nature’s Physician,’ is so essential to human happiness that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery.

Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.