It is one of the defects of modern higher education that it has become too much a training in the acquisition of certain kinds of skill, and too little an enlargement of the mind and heart by an impartial survey of the world.

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.

Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective

When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

The . . . increase in the power of officials is a constant source of irritation to everybody else.

In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.