It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.

If I were to give a simple formula or recipe for distinguishing between what I consider to be admissible plans for social reform and inadmissible Utopian blueprints, I might say: Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries.

Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now.

In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.

The doctrine that there is as much science in a subject as... mathematics in it, or as much... measurement or 'precision' in it, rests upon... misunderstanding.