424 quotes
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death.
Why Men Fight (1917)
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
Sceptical Essays (1928)
Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.
Has Man a Future? (1962)
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)
If human nature were unchangeable, as ignorant people still suppose it to be, the situation would indeed be hopeless.
Sceptical Essays (1928)
The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)
Two men who differ as to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about education.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.
What I Believe (1925)
A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest but poor.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Sceptical Essays (1928)
Life and hope for the world are to be found only in the deeds of love.
Political Ideals (1917)
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
Sceptical Essays (1928)
Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)
Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.
Education and the Social Order (1932)
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954)
In a just world, there would be no possibility of 'charity'.
On charity (1932)
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.
Fact and Fiction (1961)
The Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)