«Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.»

«Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.»

«THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good --that is perfection; and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had no cat.»

«YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.But yesterday I should have thought me blest To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak Of middle life and look adown the bleak And unfamiliar foreslope to the West, Where solemn shadows all the land invest And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest. Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame To stay the shadow on the dial's face At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name I chide aloud the little interspace Disparting me from Certitude, and fain Would know the dream and vision ne'er again. --Baruch ArnegriffIt is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven doctors.»

«Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?»