What all agree upon is probably right; what no two agree in most probably is wrong.

High up where the poor sat, the people quaked with fear:they saw the soul stretched on the ground, a votive beastbeaten by the conflicting powers of light and dark,and their minds shook, nor knew now what great god to choose,for comfort's road dropped to the right, the rough ascentrose to the left, and both roads seemed to lead to God,while at the crossroads stood the human heart, and swayed.

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

Though I certainly deserve no ill treatment from mortals, yet if the insults and repulses I receive were attended with any advantage to them, I would content myself with lamenting in silence my own unmerited indignities and man's injustice.

The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves.

'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.

The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.

I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.

I believe that the abolition of private ownership of land and capital is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another.

Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?

Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and all things will be nourished and flourish.

Live with the gods.

I must confess that my estimate of Lovecraft would not have pleased his most ardent admirers. The view I expressed in that book was that, while Lovecraft was distinctly a creative genius in his own way, his pessimism should not be taken too seriously; that it was the pessimism of a sick recluse, and had about it an element of rassentiment, a kind of desire to take revenge on the world that rejected him. In short, Lovecraft was a 19th century romantic, born in the wrong time. Most men of genius dislike their own age, but the really great ones impose their own vision on the age. The weak ones turn away into a world of gloomy fantasy.

"Those who have forgotten where the road leads." "They are at odds with what is all around them"-the all-directing logos. And "they find alien what they meet with every day."

Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them.

In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience.

Death poses a problem which replaces all the others. What is deadly to philosophy, to the naive belief in the hierarchy of perplexities.

There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.

If we already lived in a cruelty-free world, the notion of re-introducing suffering, exploitation and creatures eating each other would seem not so much frightful as unimaginable - no more seriously conceivable than reverting to surgery without anaesthesia today.

The homosexual never thinks of himself when someone is branded in his presence with the name homosexual. ...His sexual tastes will doubtless lead him to enter into relationships with this suspect category, but he would like to make use of them without being likened to them. Here, too, the ban that is cast on certain men by society has destroyed all possibility of reciprocity among them. Shame isolates.

Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.

I have come to believe that the motion of the Earth cannot be detected by any optical experiment.

Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Hume, and all the others knew they were giving rights to vulgarity. But in so doing-in addition to caring for man's well-being-they were providing rights for themselves.

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?

"How then shall they have the play-games you allow them, if none must be bought for them?" I answer, they should make them themselves, or at least endeavour it, and set themselves about it. ...And if you help them where they are at a stand, it will more endear you to them than any chargeable toys that you shall buy for them.

Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.

There was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman. He couldn't help that. That was the result of a childhood immersed in an atmosphere of bigotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature. Then you left it and saw it for what it was when you looked back.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

Whether or no it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.

It seems that I have spent my entire time trying to make life more rational and that it was all wasted effort.

The Reformation was a popular uprising, and for a century and a half drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings of the Scientific movement were confined to a minority among the intellectual elite.... The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed. The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances...Strong men believe in cause and effect.

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free.

A sensible human once said, "If people knew how much ill-feeling unselfishness occasions, it would not be so often recommended from the pulpit"; and again, "She's the sort of woman who lives for others-you can always tell the others by their hunted expression."

When the soul has descended into generation (from its first divine condition) she partakes of evil, and is carried a great way into a state the opposite of her first purity and integrity, to be entirely merged in which, is nothing more than to fall into a dark mire. ...The soul dies as much as it is possible for the soul to die: and the death to her is, while baptized or immersed in the present body, to descend into matter, and be wholly subjected by it; and after departing thence to lie there til it shall arise and turn its face away from the abhorrent filth. This is what is meant by falling asleep in Hades, of those who have come there.

The world is a great place and stocked with wealth and beauty, and there is no limit to the rewards that may be offered. Such an one who would refuse a million of money may sell his honour for an empire or the love of a woman.

The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.

"And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes."

When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. "The Precession of Simulacra,"

Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature. Beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.

A scientist worthy of the name, above all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature. ...we work not only to obtain the positive results which, according to the profane, constitute our one and only affection, as to experience this esthetic emotion and to convey it to others who are capable of experiencing it.

The Construction of the Conception very often includes, in a great measure, the Determination of the Magnitudes. The true construction of the conception is frequently suggested by some hypothesis; and in these cases, the hypothesis may be useful, though containing superfluous parts.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.