The Only Thing That I Know, Is

My Third Maxim Was To Try Always To Conquer Myself Rather Than Fortune, And To Change My Desires Rather Than The Order Of The World, And Generally To Accustom Myself To Believing That There Is Nothing Entirely In Our Power Except Our Thoughts, So That After We Have Done Our Best Regarding Things External To Us, Everything In Which We Do Not Succeed Is For Us Absolutely Impossible.

In Philosophy, When We Make Use Of False Principles, We Depart The Farther From The Knowledge Of Truth And Wisdom Exactly In Proportion To The Care With Which We Cultivate Them, And Apply Ourselves To The Deduction Of Diverse Consequences From Them, Thinking That We Are Philosophizing Well, While We Are Only Departing The Farther From The Truth; From Which It Must Be Inferred That They Who Have Learned The Least Of All That Has Been Hitherto Distinguished By The Name Of Philosophy Are The Most Fitted For The Apprehension Of Truth.

Some Years Ago I Was Struck By The Large Number Of Falsehoods That I Had Accepted As True In My Childhood, And By The Highly Doubtful Nature Of The Whole Edifice That I Had Subsequently Based On Them. I Realized That It Was Necessary, Once In The Course Of My Life, To Demolish Everything Completely And Start Again Right From The Foundations If I Wanted To Establish Anything At All In The Sciences That Was Stable And Likely To Last.

There Is A Little Gland In The Brain In Which The Soul Exercises Its Functions In A More Particular Way Than In The Other Parts.

The Reading Of All Good Books Is Indeed Like A Conversation With The Noblest Men Of Past Centuries Who Were The Authors Of Them, Nay A Carefully Studied Conversation, In Which They Reveal To Us None But The Best Of Their Thoughts.