I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, 

be it country or town. 

A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

And muse on Nature
with a poet's eye.

We don't stop playing 

because we grow old; 

we grow old 

because we stop playing.

Infatuated, 

half through conceit, 

half through love of my art, 

I achieve the impossible 

working as no one else ever works.

The spoken word 

was the first technology 

by which man was able 

to let go of his environment 

in order to grasp it 

in a new way.

Who naught suspects is easily deceived.

We keep, in science, 

getting a more and more sophisticated view 

of our essential ignorance.

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

Not to know what has been transacted in former times 

is to be always a child. 

If no use is made of the labours of past ages, 

the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.

Writing is an act of faith, 

not a trick of grammar.

If you haven't found something strange during the day, 

it hasn't been much of a day.

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; 

one to fear and sorrow real poverty.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

'L'Homme pense; donc je suis,' dit l'Univers.

Science is imagination in the service of the verifiable truth, 

and that service is indeed communal. 

It cannot be rigidly planned. 

Rather, it requires freedom and courage 

and the plural contributions of many different kinds of people 

who must maintain their individuality 

while giving to the group.