A good philosopher is one who does not take ideas seriously.

Through logic and inference we can prove anything. Therefore, logic and inference, in contrast to ordinary daily living experience, are secondary instruments of knowledge. Probably tertiary.

Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.

In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse.

It may be true that my desk here is really 'nothing but' a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine.

A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.

Man's deliberate destruction of his own habitat -- planet Earth -- could serve as a mighty theme for a mighty book worthy of a modern Melville or Tolstoy. But our best fictioneers confine themselves to domestic drama -- soap opera with literary trimmings.