While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.

If human beings could be propagated by cutting, like apple trees, aristocracy would be biologically sound.

This is my prediction for the future: Whatever hasn't happened will happen, and no one will be safe from it.

We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously. And it is just because even the least dogmatic of religions tends to associate itself with some kind of unalterable moral tradition, that there can be no truce between science and religion.

Religion is still parasitic in the interstices of our knowledge which have not yet been filled. Like bed-bugs in the cracks of walls and furniture, miracles lurk in the lacunae of science. The scientist plasters up these cracks in our knowledge; the more militant Rationalist swats the bugs in the open. Both have their proper sphere and they should realize that they are allies.

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.

Would I lay down my life to save my brother? No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.