“Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.”
Courage“Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”
Intelligence“Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.”
Courage“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.”
Great“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”
Education“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.”
Religion“In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.”
Experience“A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.”
Time“Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.”
Age“The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.”
Death“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”
Education“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.”
Food“I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.”
Happiness“Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”
Knowledge“Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.”
Freedom“Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.”
Change“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.”
Respect“Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.”
Power“Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.”
Happiness“To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.”
Age“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”
Fear“Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.”
History