“The wise say that our failure is to form habits: for habit is the mark of a stereotyped world.”

Try lighting your house by prayer instead of electricity and see which one works.

And I say, the meaning of life is what you make it. There will be as many different meaningful lives as there are people to live them.

To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.

Middle age has been defined as what happens when a person’s broad mind and narrow waist change places.

Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young.

Religion and science have a common ancestor – ignorance.

Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it.

Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.

I do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.

Look at the blogosphere – the biggest lavatory wall in the universe, a palimpsest of graffiti and execration.

It takes a certain ingenuous faith – but I have it – to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth.

I despise people who depend on these things [heroin and cocaine]. If you really want a mind-altering experience, look at a tree.

It doesn’t have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being – Everything is full of wonder.

If there is anything worth fearing in the world, it is living in such a way that gives one cause for regret in the end.

…mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.

Inculcating the various competing – competing, note – falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.

Wisdom’s daughter walks alone, The mark of Athena burns through Rome.

The scale and grandeur of the Russian effort mark it as the greatest military achievement in all history.

Silence does not always mark wisdom.

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.

The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it.

Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah.