424 quotes
People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
Probably in time physiologists will be able to make nerves connecting the bodies of different people; this will have the advantage that we shall be able to feel another man's tooth aching.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Boys and girls should be taught respect for each other's liberty... and that jealousy and possessiveness kill love.
Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable. The End.
The pursuit of philosophy is founded on the belief that knowledge is good, even if what is known is painful.
Philosophy for Laymen (1946)
Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
The Problem of China (1922)
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts: the less you know the hotter you get.
Selling : A Behavioral Science Approach (1966)
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
All this would happen very quickly if men desired their own happiness as ardently as they desired the misery of their neighbors.
What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
If the Communists conquered the world, it would be very unpleasant for a while, but not forever. But if the human race is wiped out, that is the end.
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars.
Unpopular Essays (1950)
Pi's face was masked, and it was understood that none could behold it and live. But piercing eyes looked out from the mask, inexorable, cold and enigmatic.
Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.
Political Ideals (1917)
No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
Justice in War-Time (1916)
Tigers are more beautiful than sheep, but we prefer them behind bars.
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Authority and the Individual (1949)
It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate."
Sceptical Essays (1928)
The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'être if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)