Even great spirits have only their five-fingers' breadth of experience - just beyond it their thinking ceases and their endless empty space and stupidity begins.
Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.
A poet's object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.
Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp; hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves.
You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements.