In all the creative work that I have done, what has come first is a problem, a puzzle involving discomfort.

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

I know a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found he was planting trees in his garden.

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

If one lived for ever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savour. As it is, they remain perennially fresh.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.