Society and the World

My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.

Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.

What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

Each religion, so dear to those whose life it sanctifies, and fulfilling so necessary a function in the society that has adopted it, necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm, a state of intellectual magnificence which we must safeguard like a treasure, not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words and inexact, pedantic arguments.

[ Of Rome :] A venal city ripe to perish, if a buyer can be found.

Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.

Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.

Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.

Intellectual freedom is essential to human society—freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices.

Intellectual freedom is essential to human society—freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices.

Although human life is priceless, we always act as if something had an even greater price than life. . . . But what is that something?

In science it often happens that scientists say,

[Science may be divided into either one of] physics and stamp-collecting.

If you can’t explain your physics to a barmaid, it is probably not very good physics.

From the results so far obtained it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the long-range atoms arising from collision of *3 particles with nitrogen are not nitrogen atoms but probably atoms of hydrogen, or atoms of mass 2. If this be the case, we must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated under the intense forces developed in a close collision with a swift *3 particle, and that the hydrogen atom which is liberated formed a constituent part of the nitrogen nucleus.

[ Responding to the statement, “Lucky fellow Rutherford, always on the crest of the wave” :] Well, I made the wave, didn’t I?