Human nature being what it is, people will insist upon getting some pleasure out of life.

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.

A million million years gives us some time to prepare for the end . . . let us make the best of it.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

In a Balkan country, not so many years ago, a party which had been beaten by a narrow margin in a general election retrieved its fortunes by shooting a sufficient number of the representatives of the other side to give it a majority. . . . Cromwell and Robespierre . . . acted likewise.