We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.

Prison is a severe and terrible punishment; but for me, thanks to Arthur Balfour, this was not so. I was much cheered on my arrival by the warder at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied 'agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.

Education ought to foster the wish for truth, not the conviction that some particular creed is the truth.

Machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely, spontaneity and variety.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.

I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.