“We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.”

The demand for certainty is one that is natural to man but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

I hate being all tidy like a book in a library where nobody reads – prison is horribly like that.

Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.

Even if all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken.

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

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.

Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance.

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

Women select men. That makes them nature, because nature is what selects.

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

True thinking is rare – just like true listening.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.