Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.

If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation do you prefer the grain to the vote?

There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.

The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.