Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Cruelty is, in theory, a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd.
Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs; and if these are rejected, nothing is left.
To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.
The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition.
There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.
There are infinite possibilities of error, and more cranks take up fashionable untruths than unfashionable truths.
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
There was, I think, never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male, except his superior muscle.
Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective
Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other's liberty... and that jealousy and possessiveness kill love.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
Zeno was concerned with three problems... These are the problem of the infinitesimal, the infinite, and continuity.
Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. - Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The Eugenic Society . . . is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.
When the journey from means to end is not too long, the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is ardently desired.
Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
Berkeley retains the merit of having shown that the existence of matter is capable of being denied without absurdity.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.
Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.
Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.
It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.
When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.
Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
Diversity is essential to happiness and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect in all planned social systems.
To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.
Most human beings, though in varying degrees, desire to control, not only their own lives but also the lives of others
Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life, it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism.
It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.
If the Church is not now as bad as the Soviet Government, that is due to the influence of those who attacked the Church
I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know the hotter you get.
The Axiom of Choice is necessary to select a set from an infinite number of socks, but not an infinite number of shoes.
The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
I have throughout been curious about how much we can be said to know and with what degree of certainty or doubtfulness.
Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him.
Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.
Love, children, and work, are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world.
The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.