In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

To be out of harmony with one's surroundings is of course a misfortune, but it is not always a misfortune to be avoided at all costs. Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it.

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

The sea, the stars, the night wind in waste places, mean more to me than even the human beings I love best.