“It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence – rather, it is his social existence that determines his consciousness.”

All life is problem-solving.

In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.

He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test and that they can be regarded as finally verified retires from the game.

The way of science is paved with discarded theories that were once declared self-evident.

The method of learning by trial and error – of learning from our mistakes – seems to be fundamentally the same whether it is practiced by lower or by higher animals, by chimpanzees, or by men of science.

In philosophy methods are unimportant; any method is legitimate if it leads to results capable of being rationally discussed.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

Theology, I still think, is due to a lack of faith.

Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.

The game of science is, in principle, without end.

The essential feature of dualist-interactionism is that the mind and brain are independent entities and that they interact by quantum physics.

“It can’t happen here” is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.

A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.

If our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men.

The simple truth is that truth is hard to come by, and that once found may easily be lost again.

The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty, and both should be abandoned.

There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you.

The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself.

Forget about the past. It does not exist, except in your memory. Drop it. And stop worrying about how you’re going to get through tomorrow. Life is going on right here, right now – pay attention to that and all will be well.

What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.

The wave is the same as the ocean, though it is not the whole ocean. So each wave of creation is a part of the eternal Ocean of Spirit. The Ocean can exist without the waves, but the waves cannot exist without the Ocean.

I don’t remember who said this, but there really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.

You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.

By choosing not to allow parts of ourselves to exist, we are forced to expend huge amounts of psychic energy to keep them beneath the surface.