Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then suchand such another proposition is true of that thing.... Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.