There was a law in Connecticut - I believe it is still formally unrepealed - making it illegal for a man to kiss his wife on Sunday.

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.

Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject.

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

There can't be a practical reason for believing something that is not true.