Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. What worries you, masters you. Vague and mysterious forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance and hindrance of true knowledge. Till a man can judge whether they be truths or not, his understanding is but little improved, and thus men of much reading, though greatly learned, but may be little knowing. There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men. Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding. Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly. | 
