"Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments."

"The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things."

"Science is nothing but perception."

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly."

"I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself."

"What shall we say about those spectators, then, who can see a plurality of beautiful things, but not beauty itself, and who are incapable of following if someone else tries to lead them to it, and who can see many moral actions, but not morality itself, and so on? That they only ever entertain beliefs, and do not know any of the things they believe?"

"This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related."

"Wonder is the only beginning of philosophy."

"Is there a perfect world?"

"Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death?"

"Love is a madness produced by an unclassifiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world."

"If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake."