Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

The preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them.

There is no greater hindrance to the progress of thought than an attitude of irritated party-spirit.

I am sure that one secret of a successful teacher is that he has formulated quite clearly in his mind what the pupil has got to know in precise fashion. He will then cease from half-hearted attempts to worry his pupils with memorizing a lot of irrelevant stuff of inferior importance.

The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.

The fixed person for the fixed duties who in older societies was such a godsend, in future will be a public danger.