“When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn’t. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.”

False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.

Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

The power of psychedelics is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime.

This is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own.

It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.

You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance.

The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don’t like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments , and a passionate unwillingness to do so.

Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don’t have American science versus Canadian science versus Japanese science.

The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.

Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings.

It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.

We know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty

An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist.

Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, ‘Oh man, this is the stuff.’ It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.

Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.

It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.

Honesty prospers in every condition of life.

Well, I needed the work – that’s the honest answer. I haven’t worked for a while, a couple of years. So I thought it would be nice to get back to work and earn some money.

The problem is, your ego sometimes tells you that you can do many things. But sometimes it’s best to stay focused and be honest with yourself.