It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness which would do credit to any college student, but the monkey is serious because he itches.

There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism.

Nobody can read Freud without realizing that he was the scientific equivalent of another nuisance, George Bernard Shaw.

Mathematics ... is indispensable as an intellectual technique. In many subjects, to think at all is to think like a mathematician.

Equality and justice, the two great distinguishing characteristics of democracy, follow inevitably from the conception of men, all men, as rational and spiritual beings.

Most people spend their time on the 'urgent' rather than on the 'important.'

My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects.