Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say.

Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority.

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Virtue is not the absence of vices or the avoidance of moral dangers; virtue is a vivid and separate thing, like pain or a particular smell. Mercy does not mean not being cruel or sparing people revenge or punishment; it means a plain and positive thing like the sun, which one has either seen or not see.

Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.

Don't you believe people when they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely wise—too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience.