“Senators could seldom give a reason for obstruction. In every hundred men, a certain number obstruct by instinct, and try to invent reasons to explain it afterwards.”

“[…] men are not astonish'd at the operations of their own reason, at the same time, that they admire the instinct of animals, and find a difficulty in explaining it, merely because it cannot be reduc'd to the very same principles. […] reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls[. ]”

“Art today can only be revolutionary, that is, it must aspire at the complete and radical reconstruction of society, even if for no other reason than to emancipate intellectual creation from the chains which obstruct it and to allow all mankind to rise to the heights that only geniuses could reach in the past.”

“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.”

“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”

“The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations; though the effect of these obstructions is always more or less either to encroach upon its freedom, or to diminish its security.”

“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.”

“Reason and Instinct!”

“Men give the same lines to different women for the same reason women wear the same perfume for different men; we all try the things that work.”

“Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.”