There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

If the West can claim superiority in anything, it is . . . in science and scientific technique.

Protagoras did not know if the gods exist, but he held in any case they ought to be worshiped. Philosophy, according to him, had nothing edifying to teach, and for the survival of morals we must rely upon the thoughtlessness of the majority and their willingness to believe what they had been taught.

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.

Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.

All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident enabling unpopular persons to survive.