Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. ... The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard them from the consequences of their vices.

The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.

The acting that one sees upon the stage does not show how human beings comport themselves in crises, but how actors think they ought to. It is thus, like poetry and religion, a device for gladdening the heart with what is palpably not true.

The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

Science, at bottom, is really anti-intellectual. It always distrusts pure reason, and demands the production of objective fact.