When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart read more

When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.

Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer read more

Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.

If everything's under control, you're going too slow.

If everything's under control, you're going too slow.

The Darwinian theory is in principle capable of explaining life. No other theory that has ever been suggested is in read more

The Darwinian theory is in principle capable of explaining life. No other theory that has ever been suggested is in principle capable of explaining life.

None save great men have been the authors of great heresies.

None save great men have been the authors of great heresies.

There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can read more

There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find the hive.

Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of read more

Scientific research sooner or later, but inevitably, encounters something ultimately given that it cannot trace back to something else of which it would appear as the regular or necessary derivative. Scientific progress consists in pushing further back this ultimately given.

Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the read more

Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the world we were young in.

In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is read more

In a society in which it is a moral offense to be different from your neighbor your only escape is never to let them find out.