Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person nation or creed.
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.
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 gaurds the door,and this dragon is religion
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.
No matter how eloquently a dog may bark he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.
I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceab...
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.
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.
Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand,...
There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more...
The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
Real life is to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
A child develops best when, like a young plant, he is left undisturbed in the same soil. Too much travel, too much variety of impressions, are not good for the young, and cause them as they grow up to...
For the young, there is nothing unattainable; a good thing desired with the whole force of a passionate will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by...
I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and now.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.