There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.

Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.

In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged.

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

The Church no longer contends that knowledge is in itself sinful, though it did so in its palmy days; but the acquisition of knowledge, even though not sinful, is dangerous, since it may lead to pride of intellect, and hence to a questioning of the Christian dogma.

The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.