The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

no one ever gossips about the virtues of others

What Galileo and Newton were to the seventeenth century, Darwin was to the nineteenth.

Africans had to be taught that nudity is wicked; this was done very cheaply by missionaries.

At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become; in the end you cease to understand what is meant by it.

Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.

The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.