There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.
Official morality has always been oppressive and negative: it has said “thou shalt not,” and has not troubled to investigate the effect of activities not forbidden by the code.
Human nature being what it is, people will insist upon getting some pleasure out of life.
Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.
It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone’s malignity.
We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.
Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.
None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.
Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.
Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach.
My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.
Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.
Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense.
If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God...
Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
War grows out of ordinary human nature.
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.