“The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind. Our mind works largely by metaphor and comparison, not always (or often) by relentless logic. Wh...”

“We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imp...”

“We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not b...”

“Skepticism is the agent of reason against organized irrationalism--and is therefore one of the keys to human social and civic decency.”

“We reveal ourselves in the metaphors we choose for depicting the cosmos in miniature.”

“We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universesone indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum fr...”

“There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which... is within the souls of men.”

“Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never ...”

“Because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.”

“While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of t...”

“...[N]ature generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the means to the end... [so nature's] true destination must be to produce a will, not merely good as a means to something els...”

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.”