Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Speaking psycho-analytically, it may be laid down that any "great ideal" which people mention with awe is really an excuse for inflicting pain on their enemies. Good wine needs no bush, and good morals need no bated breath.

The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is wide awake.

Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

We may often do as we please - but we cannot please as we please.

When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behavior is the result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth, and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination... When a motorcar fails to start, we do not attribute its annoying behavior to sin, we do not say, you are a wicked motorcar, and you shall not have any more gasoline until you go.