“We must never make experiments to confirm our ideas, but simply to control them.”

Enchantment (1999)

The Artist's Way (1992)
Context: All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise. <!-- p. 195

Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 15

Quoted in Philosophy of Science Vol. 37 (1934), p. 157, and in The Truth of Science : Physical Theories and Reality (1997) by Roger Gerhard Newton, p. 176
Context: What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character … We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.

Source: Tiger Eyes

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Context: Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.
This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

Cagliostro: the Splendour And Misery of a Master of Magic by W.R.H. Trowbridge, (William Rutherford Hayes), (August 1910) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Trowbridge%2c%20W%2e%20R%2e%20H%2e%20%28William%20Rutherford%20Hayes%29%2c%201866%2d1938

Source: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Ch. 61.
Context: The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.