Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

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 time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

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

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.

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 a paradise in a few years.

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case.

Dare to research on the originality of any information.

The act of accumulating knowledge about the transcendent concepts and the ability to actually experience the inner essence that these concepts signify are two very different things.

Yet, history has shown that if material force can defeat some ideologies it can no longer obliterate a civilization without destabilizing the whole planet.

It's all just venom to the soul and symptomatic of a larger issue: the idea of the shortcut. The result without the fight. The fight is the thing. The work.

There is no question about that. Business is my hobby. It is not a burden to me. In any case Reliance now can run without me.

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses.

My own child, one of them, died of AIDS. A brilliant boy.

I think that the problem of the American negro goes beyond the principle of any organization whether it's a religious, political, or otherwise.

The more you populate the 360-degree space, the more difficult it is to cut within that.