"I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along."

"When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself."

"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."

"The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

"Sin is geographical."

"The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry."

"The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible."

"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."

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."

"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."

"Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame."

"Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform."

"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power."

"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."

"A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it."

"The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men."

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

"Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery."

"To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."

"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."

"Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free."

"Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know."

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."

"It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."

"Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race."

"Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution."

"To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name."

"Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires."

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."

"It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals."

"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."

"The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself."

"I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy."

"The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them."

"Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like."

"Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it."

"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 is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives."

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

"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."

"Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."

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

"To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy."