Quote collection
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"There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man."
"It is one of the defects of modern higher education that it has become too much a training in the acquisition of certain kinds of skill, and too little an enlargement of the mind and heart by an impartial survey of the world."
"For some reason which I have failed to understand, many people like the system [scientific totalitarianism] when it is Russian but disliked the very same system when it was German. I am compelled to think that this is due to the power of labels; these people like whatever is labelled ‘Left’ without examining whether the label has any justification."
"It would now be technically possible to unify the world, abolish war and poverty altogether, if men desired their own happiness more than the misery of their enemies."
"The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry."
"Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery."
"Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance."
"Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires."
"There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority."
"It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results."
"Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness."
"A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible."
"What we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think."
"If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships."
"There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, nor vastness anywhere; only triviality for a moment and then nothing."
"I never held Negroes to be inherently inferior. The statement in Marriage and Morals refers to environmental conditioning. I have had it withdrawn from subsequent editions because it is clearly ambiguous."
"Televison allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone."
"I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not."
"...the nonexistence of God makes more difference to some of us than to others. To me, it means that there is no absolute morality, that moralities are sets of social conventions devised by humans to satisfy their needs."
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise."