Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world. The man of science has no need of a coterie, since he is thought well of by everybody except his colleagues. The artist, on the contrary, is in the painful situation of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.

John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since!

Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife.

We need a science to save us from science.

If we compare Europe with other continents, it is marked out as [another] persecuting continent.

In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.

no one ever gossips about the virtues of others