Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.

If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.

Force plays a much larger part in the government of the world than it did before 1914, and what is especially alarming, force tends increasingly to fall into the hands of those who are enemies of civilization.

Logic must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can.

Civilized life, if it is to be stable, must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where people are few, and rabbits are many, I watched the whole populace satisfying the primitive impulse in the primitive manner by the skilful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits.

Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.

Change is scientific; progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.