Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people to discourage them from ambitious attempts and generally console them in their mediocrity.

The U.S. army confirmed that it gave a lucrative fire fighting contract in Iraq to the firm once run by the Vice President Dick Cheney without any competitive bidding. When asked if this could be conceived as Cheney's friends profiting from the war the spokesman said 'Yes.'

So far as hypotheses are concerned let no one expect anything certain from astronomy which cannot furnish it lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers but by preconceived opinion by prejudice.

We should conceive of ourselves not as rulers of Earth but as highly powerful conscious stewards: The Earth is given to us in trust and we can screw it up or make it work well and sustainably.

Liberty as it is conceived by current opinion has nothing inherent about it it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

It's too bad that one has to conceive of sports as being the only arena where risks are for all of life is risk exercise. That's the only way to live more freely and more interestingly.

The weapons were conceived and created by a small band of physicists and chemists they remain a cataclysmic threat to the whole of human society and the natural environment.

I call religion a natural authority but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.