“One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.”

“For all serious intellectual progress depends upon a certain kind of independence of outside opinion, which cannot exist where the will of the majority is treated with that kind of religious respect which the orthodox give to the will of God.”

“The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:1- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.2- Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.3- Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.4- When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.5- Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.6- Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.7- Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.8- Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.9- Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.10- Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.”

“There are a great many ways in which, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering.”

“One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man’s constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect.”

“Advocates of capitalism like to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.”

“Most men think that in framing their political opinions they are actuated by desire for the public good; but 9 times out of 10 a man’s politics can be predicted from the way in which he makes a living. This has led some people to maintain, and many more to believe practically, that in such matters it is impossible to be objective, and that no method is possible except a tug-of-war between classes with opposite bias.”