“How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Jesus makes large claims for his heavenly father but never mentions that his mother is or was a virgin, and is repeatedly very rude and coarse to her when she makes an appearance.

The gods that we’ve made are exactly the gods you’d expect to be made by a species that’s about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.

Religion makes kind people say unkind things: “I must prove my faith, so mutilate the genitals of my children.” They wouldn’t do that if God didn’t tell them to do so.

Today I want to puke when I hear the word ‘radical’ applied so slothfully and stupidly to Islamist murderers; the most plainly reactionary people in the world.

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.

Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.

The violence in the Bible is appalling.

I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language – always the language – was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.

Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.

The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.

My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to defend it against any consensus, any majority anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.

The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.

As Africans we shouldn’t ever have to reach out to build our own country, there is enough money in Africa itself.

Jinnah cannot be honoured in India. He’s responsible for the partition of our country. No Jinnah eulogy is acceptable in India.

Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.

If one limb of the body is defected or inflicted with, disease, the whole feels that pain. Some way if any department, minister or official of the state is faulty, the whole country is effected. An administrator should try hard to curb it.

Try and understand: cricket was played by Commonwealth countries only; now it has started in other countries as well, and I am proud of that.

Those who can serve best, those who help most, those who sacrifice most, those are the people who will be loved in life and honoured in death, when all questions of colour are swept away and when in a free country free citizens shall meet on equal grounds.

The rate of profit is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.

Strength & Courage. Peace & Truth. Fertility & Growth. Life in Movement. My country stands for these values.