The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.
With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.
All movements go too far.
I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
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