Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

‘Change’ is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.