Quote collection
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"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."
"Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept."
"There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote."
"But as the work proceeded I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was not more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable."
"Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government."
"When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others."
"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level."
"The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others."
"Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth."
"dont let the old break you; let the love make you"
"The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all notions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by human wills."
"Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities."
"Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age."
"It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals."
"Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents"
"The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs."
"The luxury to disparage freedom is the privilege of those who already possess it."
"I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less."
"no one ever gossips about the virtues of others"
"Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men that comes chiefly through their work."