[Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.