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

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.

In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.

Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent.

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.