The top entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst the lower levels credit the top with understanding of the general, and so all are mutually deceived.

After a time, civil servants tend to become no longer servants and no longer civil.

Religion is preserved by wealth; knowledge by diligent practice; a king by conciliatory words; and a home by a dutiful housewife.

A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them.

The limit of man's knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination.