“I understand the mechanism of my own thinking. I know precisely how I know, and my understanding is recursive. I understand the infinite regress of this self-knowing, not by proceeding step by step...”

“The prospect of living without interference, living in a world where windfalls and misfortunes were never by design, held no terror for him.”

“My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important: what's importan...”

“...you couldn't ask a person to remain supportive through any crisis. If a man's wife were suddenly afflicted with a mental illness, it would be a sin for him to leave her, but a forgivable one. To...”

“At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the mome...”

“When you watch Olympic athletes in competition, does your self-esteem plummet? Of course not. On the contrary, you feel wonder and admiration; you're inspired that such exceptional individuals exis...”

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

“Spinoza was the supreme rationalist. He saw an endless stream of causality in the world. For him there is no such entity as will or will power. Nothing happens capriciously. Everything is caused by...”

“Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanati...”

“My mind is a lock pick always looking for another door to open. I often find those doors by exploring minds of others...”

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in infomation?”