Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.

Unfortunately, 19th-century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact, as were 17th-century sectarians to jump to the conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious explanation . . . . and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.

When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.

We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.

Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole Arctic continent does not make ivory black.

A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.

[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.