Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?" "So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.

The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.

the truth and value of a theory does not depend on the number of people who are interested in it - otherwise you might compare the number of people who follow the predictions of astrologers in the daily press with those who attend lectures by Einstein, and conclude that astrology was more valuable and true than physics.

If people will bring dynamite into a powder factory, they must expect explosions.

The doctrine of hell is not "mediaeval priestcraft" for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christ's deliberate judgment on sin.... We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ.

There is only one kind of wisdom that has any social value, and that is the knowledge of one's own limitations.