A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.
The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today?
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