The mind perceives … that it is higher than institutions, which are but the woof and web of its thought and will, which it weaves and outgrows, and w… - John Lancaster Spalding

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.

Philosophers and theologians, like the vulgar, prefer contradiction to enlightenment. They refute one another more gladly than they learn from one another, as though man lived by shunning error and not by loving truth. Accept their formulas and they sink back into their easy chairs and comfortably doze.