There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflection to any logical conclusion.

In all the creative work that I have done, what has come first is a problem, a puzzle involving discomfort.

Every increase in knowledge requires an increase in wisdom

In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap.

Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.

Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.