The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various rampant isms

No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.

Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.

Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world. The man of science has no need of a coterie, since he is thought well of by everybody except his colleagues. The artist, on the contrary, is in the painful situation of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.