Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.

Change is one thing, progress is another.

Calculating machines do sums better than even the cleverest people… As arithmetic has grown easier, it has come to be less respected.

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.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.