When all is said, its atmosphere [England's] still contains fewer germs of aggression and brutality per cubic foot in a crowded bus, pub or queue than in any other country in which I have lived

One may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions.

Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.

Aggressiveness is not the main trouble with the human species, but rather an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.

I am not sure whether ethical absolutes exist. But I am sure that we have to act as if they existed or civilization perishes.

Without the hard little bits of marble which are called 'facts' or 'data' one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them.

The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use.