“Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.”

That is the truth about man – that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don’t understand.

The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.

The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.

It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.

Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.

The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

And Supernatural, in fact, going there wasit felt like a place where I had to actually, um, learn to be kind of manly. I felt like I had to kind of change my, like, way of speaking for a little bit, just to kind of fit in, oddly enough. Which was weird.

I find the fact that billionaires are quoted as if the fact that they are billionaires gives them some kind of wisdom is outrageous.

The AEC scientists were so narrowly focused on arming the United States for nuclear war that they failed to perceive facts – even widely known ones – that were outside their limited field of vision.

People rely on Wikipedia, and a lot of it is wrong. But because there it is on the Internet, they assume it’s right.

This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.

Renunciation – that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

My wife is the fact-checker, I’m in the story telling business.

First of all, I’d like to say here the fact that I’m not naturally a craftsman has made me work very hard.