Life is that which can hold a purpose for three thousand years and never yield. The individual fails, but life succeeds. The individual is foolish, b… - Will Durant

The constant steaming in of thoughts of others must suppress and confine our own and indeed in the long run paralyze the power of thought… The inclination of most scholars is a kind of fuga vacui ( latin for vacuum suction )from the poverty of their own mind , which forcibly draws in the thoughts of others… It is dangerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it ourselves… When we read, another person thinks for us; merely repeat his mental process. So it comes about that if anybody spends almost the whole day in reading, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking. Experience of the world may be looked upon as a kind of text, to which reflection and knowledge form the commentary. Where there is a great deal of reflection and intellectual knowledge and very little experience , the result is like those books which have on each page two lines of text to forty lines of commentary

So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it — perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts.

it was fear that first made the gods”25 — fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, winds, and sky. Religion became the propitiatory worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifice, incantation, and prayer.