“Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.”

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone.

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.

For the shield may be as important for victory, as the sword or spear.

Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.

The normal food of man is vegetable.

Some call it evolution, And others call it God.

Not one change of species into another is on record, we cannot prove that a single species has been changed.

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age.

The willing horse is always overworked.

We are optimists, until we are not.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.

If the cause is advanced, indifferent is it to me where or in what quarter it happens.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots.

Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.

Most young women do not welcome promiscuous advances.