Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

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

The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description. Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination. A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.