“As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.”

“The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.”

“The religion of the future will be cosmic religion. It will transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

“If someone can enjoy marching to music in rank and file, I can feel only contempt for him; he has received his large brain by mistake, a spinal cord would have been enough.”

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

“There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”

“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.”

“But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

“Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow - perhaps it all will.”

“As long as armies exist, any serious quarrel will lead to war.”

“Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.”

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”