“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”

We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians.

History has no meaning.

I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate.

Great men may make great mistakes.

What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, not to politicize morals.

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

The conspiracy theory of society, comes from abandoning God and then asking: “Who is in his place?”

It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.

The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity.

Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but hell.

No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it

The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

Self-confidence results, first, from exact knowledge; second, the ability to impart that knowledge.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.

We were glad, however, to get within reach of information.

All knowledge and understanding of the Universe was no more than playing with stones and shells on the seashore of the vast imponderable ocean of truth.

To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.

I like reading books that provide you with knowledge that you previously didn’t have. And books you have a chance to grow as a human being after reading them.

Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.

Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge; and through humane ways.