“Were we incapable of empathy of putting ourselves in the position of others and seeing that their suffering is like our own then ethical reasoning would lead nowhere. If emotion without reason is...”

“In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually ...”

“Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task...”

“If we shrug our shoulders at the avoidable suffering of the weak and the poor, of those who are getting exploited and ripped off, we are not the left.”

“Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing specia...”

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into ca...”

“We stand at a crossroads. Do we choose 'the will to power' or 'the will to humanity,' or perhaps a new configuration of both: the power of humanity?”

“One thing I learned as a journalist is that there is at least one disgruntled person in every workplace in America -- and at least double that number with a conscience. Hard as they try, they simpl...”

“Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you, --will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others, --or to dimini...”

“Sometimes I feel like we're a knot, too tangled to be taken apart.”

“Memories of lost love they do enpain,Fleeting images of what once was never again to gain.Hold tight those memories that slip through the mind, To walk in those fields again with hera dream divi...”

“As she left the cold arena Angel had to laugh,Beaten by that of a wisp girl and her subliming cunning craft.Jove lay silent in his orbit; brooding, deep, dreamless forweep,And faithful dog Sirius r...”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in mens minds, perhaps f...”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”