This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.
RELIGION: A set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual.
HELL: A place where the police are German, the motorists French and the cooks English.
No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation.
Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.
There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.
People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true.
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.
We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. – Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution, which idealism palms off as the totality of being.
Love is a little haven of refuge from the world.
The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed; each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.
Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.
I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
Physics, owing to the simplicity of its subject matter, has reached a higher state of development than any other science.