When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases, people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly. The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.

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

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.

It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.

Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents

Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.