Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

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.

You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.

What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.

There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric god. I cannot prove that either the Christian god or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.

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.