indiana-university-faculty

"Men of science, men given to "realism," are likely to make a clean sweep of old interests and sentiments as so much rubbish. They regard religion as superstition, metaphysics as moonshine, art as primitive pastime, and all ritual as monkey-business; they apparently assume that because the traditional answers to old needs have been discredited, the needs themselves have vanished."

"Although science is no doubt the Jehovah of the modern world, there is considerable doubt about the glory of its handiwork."

"To say...that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer."

"Few have heard of Fra Luca Pacioli, the inventor of double-entry book-keeping; but he has probably had much more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo."

"It is open to question whether men today, despite the enormous increase in their knowledge, wealth, and power, can yet endure a universe that leaves them alone, or can manage to live in freedom."

"It is fitting that her [Ancient Egypt's] most enduring works remain the pyramids. They are monuments to the majesty of her ideal, and to its basic absurdity; to the promise of her beginnings, and to its curse."

"It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths."