Belief systems provide a programme which relieves the necessity of thought.

The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know-it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.

We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.

Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.

There are still many people in America who regard depressions as acts of God. I think Keynes proved that the responsibility for these occurrences does not rest with Providence.

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.