I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist - all that is commonly called Science - to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.

We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. . . . This leads to frightful results. . . . The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so. . . . Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue.

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creatingfuture dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.

As I grew up I became increasingly interested in philosophy, or which [his family] profoundly disapproved. Everytime the subject came up they repeated with unfailing regularity, "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." After some fifty or sixty repititions, this remark ceased to amuse me.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.

The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.