“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.”

“...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”

“The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.”

“We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action and can only guide it by taking thought.”

“Error is the price we pay for progress.”

“Life is complex in its expression, involving more than percipience, namely desire, emotion, will, and feeling.”

“It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”