There Is Only One Prospect Worse Than

Innovation Is A Twofold Threat To Academic Mediocrities: It Endangers Their Oracular Authority, And It Evokes The Deeper Fear That Their Whole, Laboriously Constructed Intellectual Edifice Might Collapse.

In The Social Equation, The Value Of A Single Life Is Nil; In The Cosmic Equation, It Is Infinite... Not Only Communism, But Any Political Movement Which Implicitly Relies On Purely Utilitarian Ethics, Must Become A Victim To The Same Fatal Error. It Is A Fallacy As Naïve As A Mathematical Teaser, And Yet Its Consequences Lead Straight To Goya's Disasters, To The Reign Of The Guillotine, The Torture Chambers Of The Inquisition, Or The Cellars Of The Lubianka.

The Progress Of Science, Like An Ancient Desert Trail, Is Strewn With The Bleached Skeletons Of Discarded Theories, Doctrines, And Axioms Which Seemed To Possess Eternal Life.

Learn From The Mistakes Of Others. You Can't Live Long Enough To Make Them All Yourself. Boredom Sets Into Boring Minds. The More Original A Discovery, The More Obvious It Seems Afterwards.

Chemically Induced Hallucinations, Delusions And Raptures May Be Frightening Or Wonderfully Gratifying; In Either Case They Are In The Nature Of Confidence Tricks Played On One's Own Nervous System.