 Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. |
| 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. |
| Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? |
| 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. |
| It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals. |
| Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate. |
| The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. |
| The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. |
| In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards. |
| The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. |
| I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. |
| Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction. |
| Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. |
| 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. |
| What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. |
| Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. |
| Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. |
| I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex. |
| Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. |
| I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. |
