“Thought is what we start from: the simple, intimate, immediate datum. Matter is the inferred thing, the mystery.”

“No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.”

“What's the matter?'' She immediately started laughin. ''What's the mattter? Everything is the matter! Rocks! Trees! Atoms! Even anteaters! Everything is the matter!”

“The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.”

“Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree : you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say 'this we know'.”

“We cannot infer from prosperity that God is pleased with us, nor can we infer from adversity that he is displeased with us.”