“The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.”

All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.

The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

To mistake money for wealth, is the same sort of error as to mistake the highway which may be the easiest way of getting to your house or lands, for the house and lands themselves.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.

I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.

Stupidity is much the same all the world over.

Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.

When one’s ideas are not challenged, one’s ability to defend them weakens.

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.

Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

The modern infrastructures that exists in the world all contribute to the advancement of human rights and democracy.

Berlin, formed for the advancement of science.

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime.

The objective of spiritual advancement is not so much ‘works’ but the quality of life free from ego-consciousness.

Any article’s good. Long as it’s publicity, I think that’s all that matters. I think it’s advancement for my career.

I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to.

It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.

The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.