That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience. - Alfred North Whitehead

[F]ertilisation of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, 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.

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.