Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.

The world is too much with us late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours.

As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.