The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading
The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.
The secrets to happiness include enterprise, exploration of one's interests and the overcoming of obstacles.
Teachers are more than any other group the guardians of civilization.
To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things-this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship... United with his fellow men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love.
Envy is the basis of democracy.
The sea, the stars, the night wind in waste places, mean more to me than even the human beings I love best.
Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.
I FIND IT SO DIFFICULT NOT TO HATE, WHEN I DO NOT HATE I FEEL WE FEW ARE SO LONELY IN THE WORLD
The whiter my hair becomes, the more ready people are to believe what I say.
The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress.
A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.
Almost all education has a political motive.
The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to be lofty ethic, and to confer an apparently sacred character upon practices which have come down from more ignorant and barbarous times.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox; as is a paradox why the number 1 is not prime if it has no other divisors besides himself.
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.
Liberty is the right to do what I like; licence, the right to do what you like.
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.
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