Quotations

«It is common error to infer that things which are consecutive in order of time have necessarily the relation of cause and effect.»

«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.»

«DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead --a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.»

«Belief is always most desired, most pressingly needed where there is a lack of will, for the will, as emotion of command, is the distinguishing characteristic of sovereignty and power. That is to say, the less a person knows how to command, the more urgent is his desire for one who commands, who commands sternly - a God, a prince, a caste, a physician, a confessor, a dogma, a party consciene. From whence perhaps it could be inferred that the two world religions, Buddhism and Christianity, might well have had the cause of their rise, and especially of their rapid extension, in an extraordinary malady of the will.»

«If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.»

«Consider first, that great or bright infers not excellence»

«It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.»

«Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present»

«It is very appropriate to infer that the Veda was given to the world only by persons endowed with all powers.»

«From the fact that I had permitted them to announce My arrival for the function, they could well have inferred that the floods would subside and that I would be in their midst, for, once My word goes forth, it must happen accordingly. Do not doubt it. The furious waves calmed before Rama, the floods went down in time for Me.»