One should 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.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.

With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the benef…

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people'…

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is…

Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.