It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
The difference between the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured in by the schoolmen, in saying, that the knowledgeof man is an evening knowledge, vespertina cognitio, but that of God is a morning knowledge, matutina cognitio.
Upon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation... this is the work and aim of human knowledge.
The essential form of knowledge... is nothing but a representation of truth: for the truth of being and the truth of knowing are one, differing no more than the direct beam and the beam reflected.
The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap
Some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper; some to entertain the mind with variety and delight; some for ornament and reputation; some for victory and contention; many for lucre and a livelihood; and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind.