What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement.

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.

We love out of compassion, passion or a sense of commitment.

I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive.

Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about.

I talk to myself, not because I'm lonely, but because sometimes I'm the only one who understands what I'm saying.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

Power tends to isolate those who hold too much of it. Eventually, they lose touch with reality ... and fall.

How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? ... that became for me more and more the real measure of value.

You have these 'hot towers', tropical storm clouds acting like chimneys to carry heat to the upper atmosphere.

Keep your eye on the goal, keep moving toward your target.

I can't swim but if my girlfriend was drowning, I'd still dive in to save her.