And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? 

Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

It is not once nor twice but times without number 

that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

Full circle, 

from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb, 

we come: 

an ambiguous enigmatic incursion into a world of solid matter that is soon to melt from us, 

like the substance of a dream.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. 

When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, 

then comes the new life and all that is needed.

The unfolding through time of all things from one 

is the simple message, finally, 

of every one of the creation myths ... 

including that of our contemporary biological view, 

which becomes an effective mythic image 

the moment we recognise its own inner mystery.

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,

on the surface of a gas covered planet

going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away

and think this to be normal

is obviously some indication

of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

A man of genius makes no mistakes; 

his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Myth is much more important and true than history. 

History is just journalism 

and you know how reliable that is.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth 

and cease only at death.

Compassion is the basis of morality.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision 

for the limits of the world.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings 

so that you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for.

An intellectual dictator is not a sympathetic figure —

even when he has risen from humble beginnings.

Merely having an open mind is nothing; 

the object of opening the mind, 

as of opening the mouth, 

is to shut it again on something solid.