Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next

Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

Descartes, the father of modern philosophy ... would never-so he assures us-have been led to construct his philosophy if he had had only one teacher, for then he would have believed what he had been told; but, finding that his professors disagreed with each other, he was forced to conclude that no existing doctrine was certain.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.

Americans need rest, but do not know it.