A book glorifying war may be quite as anti-social, and to my mind quite as obscene, as one glorifying illicit love, but it is never suppressed, and seldom publicly denounced.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: War
We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Success, Success & Failure, Nature
A fairly bright boy is far more intelligent and far better company than the average adult.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Children
Marriage has a biological basis, and would be far more often a success if its biology were generally understood and the knowledge acted upon.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Marriage
I wish I had the voice of Homer to sing of rectal carcinoma.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Cancer
There is still an immense amount to be learned about health, but if what is at present known to a few were part of the general knowledge, the average expectation of life could probably be increased by about ten years.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Health
The ideal society would enable every man and woman to develop along their individual lines, and not attempt to force all into one mould, however admirable.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Society
In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Words
I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don’t know why I do things.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Correction, Reform
While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Humanity
The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Assumptions, Theory
During the Middle Ages Europe was far too much influenced by celibate men. Today much too big a part in public life is played by celibate women, and too little by mothers. I find no new ideas more genuinely disgusting than that held by many educated authorities that a woman ceases to be suitable as a teacher when she becomes a mother.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Teaching
A single mind can acquire a fair knowledge of the whole field of science, and find plenty of time to spare for ordinary human affairs. Not many people take the trouble to do so. But without a knowledge of science one cannot understand current events. That is why our modern literature and art are mostly so unreal.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Science
I have never yet met a healthy person who worried very much about his health, or a really good person who worried much about his own soul.
—J. B. S. Haldane
Topics: Health
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Thomas Henry Huxley English Biologist
- A. E. Housman English Scholar, Poet
- E. O. Wilson American Sociobiologist
- Stephen Jay Gould American Paleontologist
- Jonas Salk American Virologist
- Harold Macmillan British Head of State
- E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax British Politician
- Charles Darwin British Naturalist
- Bertrand A. Russell British Philosopher, Mathematician
- Winston Churchill British Head of State
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