To believe that if we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization read more

To believe that if we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.

...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do read more

...we are entitled to make almost any reasonable assumption, but should resist making conclusions until evidence requires that we do so.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of read more

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.

...it is curiosity, initiative, originality, and the ruthless application of honesty that count in research- much more than feats of read more

...it is curiosity, initiative, originality, and the ruthless application of honesty that count in research- much more than feats of logic and memory alone.

It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.

It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.

However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is read more

However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions.

Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine read more

Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine to be in God's mind, and it is really difficult for human intelligence to guess at a divine intelligence. What we usually end up with by this sort of reasoning is to make God the color-sergeant of our army and to make Him as chauvinistic as ourselves.

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of read more

Savage peoples are ruled by passion, civilized peoples by the mind. The difference lies not in the respective natures of savagery and civilization, but in their attendant circumstances, institutions, and so forth. The difference, therefore, does not operate in every sense, but it does in most of them. Even the most civilized peoples, in short, can be fired with passionate hatred for each other.