In reading this author [ Montaigne ] and comparing him with Epictetus, — Blaise Pascal

"These philosophers of the world place contrarieties in the same subject; for the one attributed greatness to nature and the other weakness to this same nature, which could not subsist; whilst faith teaches us to place them in different subjects: all that is infirm belonging to nature, all that is powerful belonging to grace. Such is the marvelous and novel union which God alone could teach, and which he alone could make, and which is only a type and an effect of the ineffable union of two natures in the single person of a Man-God."

"To treat the living body as a mechanism was repugnant, and seemed even ludicrous, to Pascal."

"If you act externally with men in conformity with your rank, you should recognize, by a more secret but truer thought, that you have nothing naturally superior to them."

"Je nai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je nai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte."

"Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives."

"When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the small space which I fill, or even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified, and wonder that I am here rather than there, for there is no reason why here rather than there, or now rather than then. Who has set me here? By whose order and design have this place and time been destined for me?—Memoria hospitis unius diei prætereuntis. It is not well to be too much at liberty. It is not well to have all we want. How many kingdoms know nothing of us! The eternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."

"Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading."

"In a Thumbnail Sketch here is [the Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness] so far:There is no single, definitive "stream of consciousness," because there is no central Headquarters, no Cartesian Theatre where "it all comes together" for the perusal of a Central Meaner. Instead of such a single stream (however wide), there are multiple channels in which specialist circuits try, in parallel pandemoniums, to do their various things, creating Multiple Drafts as they go. Most of these fragmentary drafts of "narrative" play short-lived roles in the modulation of current activity but some get promoted to further functional roles, in swift succession, by the activity of a virtual machine in the brain. The seriality of this machine (its "von Neumannesque" character) is not a "hard-wired" design feature, but rather the upshot of a succession of coalitions of these specialists.The basic specialists are part of our animal heritage. They were not developed to perform peculiarly human actions, such as reading and writing, but ducking, predator-avoiding, face-recognizing, grasping, throwing, berry-picking, and other essential tasks. They are often opportunistically enlisted in new roles, for which their talents may more or less suit them. The result is not bedlam only because the trends that are imposed on all this activity are themselves part of the design. Some of this design is innate, and is shared with other animals. But it is augmented, and sometimes even overwhelmed in importance, by microhabits of thought that are developed in the individual, partly idiosyncratic results of self-exploration and partly the predesigned gifts of culture. Thousands of memes, mostly borne by language, but also by wordless "images" and other data structures, take up residence in an individual brain, shaping its tendencies and thereby turning it into a mind."

"Amy Kofman: Have you read all the books in here? Derrida: No, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully."

"Far transcend my weak invention. ’Tis a simple Christian child, Missionary young and mild, From her store of script’ral knowledge (Bible-taught without a college) Which by reading she could gather, Teaches him to say Our Father To the common Parent, who Colour not respects nor hue. White and Black in him have part, Who looks not to the skin, but heart."

"The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in Professor Angells most recent hand; and made no pretense to literary style. What seemed to be the main document was headed "CTHULHU CULT" in characters painstakingly printed to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheard-of."

"“Surfing the Web” (as dubious a metaphor as “the information highway”) is, as a friend of mine has it, “like reading magazines with the pages stuck together.” My wife shakes her head in dismay as I patiently await the downloading of some Japanese Beatles fans personal catalog of bootlegs. “But it’s from Japan!” She isnt moved. She goes out to enjoy the flowers in her garden."