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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 gardene...more

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When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, ...more

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In all affairs love religion politics or business it's a healthy idea now and then to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for gra...more

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I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and now.

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There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

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

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Change is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical. Change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

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

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Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my t...more

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Every man wherever he goes is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions which move with him like flies on a summer day.

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It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are b...more

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We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority o...more

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William James used to preach the 'will to believe.' For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will to doubt' ... what is wanted is not the will to bel...more

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I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in qu...more