“The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”

Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.

It seems to me fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful and not because you think it’s true.

The fundamental concept in social science is power, in the same sense in which energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present, very few people have reached this level.

Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3 parts dead.

It’s easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of great fear.

Your writing is never as good as you hoped, but never as bad as you feared.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

Do not promote what you can’t explain, simplify, and prove early.

I took especially great pleasure in mathematics because of the certainty and the evidence of its arguments.

Courage is the human virtue that counts most-courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That’s all any of us have.

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

Do you think if there was any real evidence, we would have reached a settlement?

The book is true, and if evidence seems to condtradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out not the book.

Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.