Quotations and Poems

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “Drunkenness is temporary suicide.”

» Anger » “Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.”

» Animals » “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.”

» Belief » “What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.”

» Belief » “When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favor of the belief which he finds in himself.”

» Bible » “There’s a Bible on the shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire-poison and antidote.”

» Bores and Boredom » “Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.”

» Bores and Boredom » “Unless one is taught what to do with success after getting it, achievement of it must inevitably leave him prey to boredom.”

» Capitalism » “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.”

» Caution » “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”

» Certainty » “What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.”

» Change » “All movements go too far.”

» Circumstance » “If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.”

» Computers » “There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.”

» Contentment » “The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.”

» Controversy » “The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”

» Conventionality » “Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.”

» Cooperation » “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

» Credulity » “Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”

» Death and Dying » “Most people would rather die than think: many do.”

» Death and Dying » “To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

» Desire » “All human activity is prompted by desire.”

» Detail » “Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.”

» Doubt » “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

» Doubt » “In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

» Duty » “A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”

» Eloquence » “To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.”

» Emotions » “We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.”

» Equality » “In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.”

» Ethics » “Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.”

» Evolution » “An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.”

» Evolution » “Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.”

» Experience » “In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word ”experience” have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.”

» Experts » “Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.”

» Facts » “Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.”

» Farming and Farmers » “With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.”

» Fathers » “The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.”

» Fear » “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

» Freedom » “Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.”

» Gossip » “No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.”

» Government » “There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action.”

» Happiness » “The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.”

» Happiness » “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

» Happiness » “To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.”

» Happiness » “The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”

» Happiness » “Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.”

» Happiness » “Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.”

» Happiness » “If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.”

» Happiness » “Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.”

» Happiness » “Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.”

» Hatred » “Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.”

» Health » “One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

» Hope » “Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.”

» Ignorance » “Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.”

» Illusion » “A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.”

» Importance » “The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as a means to other account, and not merely as a means to other things, are knowledge, art instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.”

» Infinity » “If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.”

» Intelligence and Intellectuals » “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.”

» Knowledge » “The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts- the less you know the hotter you get.”

» Knowledge » “There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.”

» Liberals » “The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”

» Life and Living » “Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

» Life and Living » “The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.”

» Love » “Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.”

» Love » “The root of the matter