Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.

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.

It is unfortunate that many people today cannot realize the need around them.

We don't always get what we want but often something better happens and we become the person we always wanted to be.

I like to think that Henry James said his classic line, "A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost, " while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head.

Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple.' Ah, well, I'm not sure I believe that.

It's a little-appreciated fact that most of the animals in our ocean make light.

If you can't feed a team with two pizzas, it's too large.

The love of your life won't be the man you end up with, and you'll always compare the two.

The ideas of the wise have been tested by centuries. Everything medium is lost and only original, deep and useful things are left.

D.N.A. sequences change by mutations, and the idea behind the molecular clock is that those changes occur at, more or less, a constant rate, over time.

I don't have no friends. I don't want no friends. That's how I feel.