In our complex world, there cannot be fruitful initiative without government, but unfortunately there can be government without initiative.

It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.

It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that there are few who can appreciate it, and that ordinary education can take no account of so aristocratic a good. I do not believe this. The joy of mental adventure is far commoner in the young than in grown men and women. ...It is rare in later life because everything is done to kill it during education.

Skilled work, of no matter what kind, is only done well by those who take a certain pleasure in it, quite apart from its utility, either to themselves in earning a living, or to the world through its outcome.

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to which either can appeal, there is nothing for it but mutual hatred and an open or covert appeal to force.

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death.