Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.

The power of thought, the vast regions it can master.

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

Envy, in fact, is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations.

Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth'...Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.