I know a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found he was planting trees in his garden.
At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become; in the end you cease to understand what is meant by it.
When the state intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine.
A priori Logical propositions are such as can be known a priori without study of the actual world.
The pure mathematician, like the musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.
It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know-or care-about circumstances in the colonies.
Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.
It can be shown that a mathematical web of some kind can be woven about any universe containing several objects. The fact that our universe lends itself to mathematical treatment is not a fact of any great philosophical significance.
To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is based on the idea of approximation. If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly, then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.
Abstract work, if one wishes to do it well, must be allowed to destroy one’s humanity; one raises a monument which is at the same time a tomb, in which, voluntarily, one slowly inters oneself.
Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.
If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.
If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to boast.
Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife.
Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved.
Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question; secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.
We believe, first and foremost, what makes us feel that we are fine fellows.
It is only theory that makes men completely incautious.