Both Teachers And Learners Go To Sleep

The Beliefs Which We Have Most Warrant For Have No Safeguard To Rest On But A Standing Invitation To The Whole World To Prove Them Unfounded. If The Challenge Is Not Accepted, Or Is Accepted And The Attempt Fails, We Are Far Enough From Certainty Still; But We Have Done The Best That The Existing State Of Human Reason Admits Of; We Have Neglected Nothing That Could Give The Truth A Chance Of Reaching Us.

It Often Happens That The Universal Belief Of One Age Of Mankind — A Belief From Which No One Was, Nor Without An Extraordinary Effort Of Genius And Courage, Could At That Time Be Free — Becomes To A Subsequent Age So Palpable An Absurdity, That The Only Difficulty Then Is To Imagine How Such A Thing Can Ever Have Appeared Credible.

A [psychological] Difficulty Is Not An Impossibility.

In This Age, The Mere Example Of Non-conformity, The Mere Refusal To Bend The Knee To Custom, Is Itself A Service. Precisely Because The Tyranny Of Opinion Is Such As To Make Eccentricity A Reproach, It Is Desirable, In Order To Break Through That Tyranny, That People Should Be Eccentric. Eccentricity Has Always Abounded When And Where Strength Of Character Has Abounded; And The Amount Of Eccentricity In A Society Has Generally Been Proportional To The Amount Of Genius, Mental Vigor, And Moral Courage Which It Contained. That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric, Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

It Is Historically True That A Large Proportion Of Infidels In All Ages Have Been Persons Of Distinguished Integrity And Honor.