George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

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.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

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

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

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

When you remain silent, your voice is the loudest.

You need to study, to examine deeply the field you are interested in

If we were to behave half as well as we believe others ought to behave, we might prove ourselves as grand in character as excuses and justifications prevent us from being.

I have a good life, I remind myself. There are plenty of people who love me. They're just not around at the moment.

There wasn't in the beginning. It wasn't until your kind discovered what was happening that any resistance started. That seems to be the key—knowing what’s going to happen.

You have to be happy with yourself first of all - that's the most important thing.

No, I don't think 'The Wire' screwed up my career at all. It's the only reason people have heard of me. It's only been a huge, huge, very fortunate bonus.

Verily, God hath eighteen thousand worlds; and verily, your world is one of them, and this its bright axle-tree.

Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.

There is unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student.