We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. . . . This leads to frightful results. . . . The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so. . . . Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue.
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
I am as drunk as a lord, but then, I am one, so what does it matter ?
If a law were passed giving six months to every writer of a first book, only the good ones would do it.
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.
The whole realm of thought and opinion is utterly unsuited to public control; it ought to be as free, and as spontaneous as is possible. The state is justified in insisting that children shall be educated, but it is not justified in forcing their education to proceed on a uniform plan and to be directed to the production of a dead level of glib uniformity.
The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know.
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Envy, in fact, is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations.
A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
Love as a relation between men and women was ruined by the desire to make sure of the legitimacy of children.
I believe myself that romantic love is the source of the most intense delights that life has to offer. In the relation of a man and woman who love each other with passion and imagination and tenderness, there is something of inestimable value, to be ignorant of which is a great misfortune to any human being.
The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.
When two great powers disagree about anything - it doesn't matter what - they must find a way to settle it somehow by arbitration or by negotiation, not by war or threat of war.
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