“There is a maxim about the universe which I always tell my students: That which is not explicitly forbidden is guaranteed to occur.”

Source: Letters to Milena

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 7 (pp. 39-40)
Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Ich soll niemals anders verfahren als so, dass ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden.
Kant's supreme moral principle or "categorical imperative"; Variant translations:
Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.
Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.
Do not feel forced to act, as you're only willing to act according to your own universal laws. And that's good. For only willfull acts are universal. And that's your maxim.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Der kategorische Imperativ, der überhaupt nur aussagt, was Verbindlichkeit sei, ist: handle nach einer Maxime, welche zugleich als ein allgemeines Gesetz gelten kann.
Source: Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Ch. 11

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 422.
Context: The Bible tells me explicitly that Christ was God; and it tells me, as explicitly that Christ was man. It does not go on to state the modus or manner of the union. I stop, therefore, where the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my Mediator, but I own as inscrutable the mysteries of His person.

Interview with Michael Joyce in Pif (January 2000) http://www.pifmagazine.com/vol32/i_m_joyce.shtml <br class="br">Context: I was just telling my students about first reading D. H. Lawrence and having that feeling: it is done, I need not do more or attempt to... I would have to say – and this is less hubris, I swear, than a humble recognition from what others say about reading my work – that I have a way of shaping the experience of the text so that it becomes like a maze of mirrors set at angles to each other, not a funhouse labyrinth exactly nor the mirror in mirror, but rather an angularity wherein the mirror mirrors the blue opening as well as the opposing surface so that surface and opening multiply and intertwine.

George Boole, &quot; Solution of a Question in the Theory of Probabilities http://books.google.nl/books?id=9xtDAQAAIAAJ&amp;pg=PA32&quot; (30 November 1853) published in The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science‬‎ (January 1854), p. 32 <br class="br">1850s

Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 19 “Channel Two’s Popularity” (p. 162)

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 1, Scientific Method and the Social Sciences, p. 35