The novice with only a hammer thinks everything looks like a nail. The expert sets about turning everything into a nail.
Thinking
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
—Whitehead
More tears are shed over world-views than worlds.
The mind has no immune system, and can be cured of a virus only by another virus, or by a stronger dose of what infected it in the first place.
To be a danger to oneself is a contradiction, for ethical hedonists, or a tautology, for everyone else.
The proponent of an idea must be more ruthless than the Mongols. No conquest is permanent; every mind-territory is forever up for grabs.
Induce, and the world induces with you; deduce and you deduce alone.
The specialist reviews the generalist: “A thorough and knowledgeable overview… regrettably full of errors on my particular subject.”
We infer the future from the past because the past is all we have: our generalizations, like our generals, are always fighting the last war.
Never philosophize with a hammer when you can use a scalpel.
Everyone has a favorite explanatory tool, which he will use, if it is all he has, to explain everything. One hopes at best to add an implement or two to the box, to spot, in the vast sea of nails, an occasional rivet or screw.