Quote collection
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"In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component."
"Opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses."
"Is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves a member of itself?"
"Facts have to be discovered by observation, not by reasoning"
"The essence of education is that it is a change effected in the organism to satisfy the operator."
"Only six need be attempted."
"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."
"To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed."
"A world without delight and without affection is a world destitute of value."
"The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities."
"[Freedom] is the greatest of political goods. I do not say freedom is the greatest of all goods: the best things come from within they are such things as creative art, and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hindered by political conditions, but not actually produced by them; and freedom is, both in itself and in its relation to these other goods the best thing that political and economic conditions can secure."
"It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be constituted by children, and relations not involving children ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indifferent by public opinion. It is only through children that relations cease to be a purely private matter."
"The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable."
"Psychology often becomes the disease of which it should be the cure."
"What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power."
"The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education."
"It was the duty of wives to submit to husbands, not of husbands to submit to wives. . . men have stronger muscles than women."
"Marx's father became a Christian when Marx was a little boy, and some, at least, of the dogmas he must have then accepted seem to have born fruit in his son's psychology."
"Modern life cannot be constructed on . . . physically strenuous principles. A great deal of work is sedentary, and most manual work exercises only a few specialized muscles."
"Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye."