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

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the “intellectual love of God.” Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.

Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational.

The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various rampant isms