The media no longer hesitate to whip up lurid anxieties in order to increase sales, in the process undermining social confidence and multiplying fears.

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.

A human lifespan is less than a thousand months long. You need to make some time to think how to live it.

To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.

Religion and science have a common ancestor - ignorance.

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.

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

Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young.

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

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.

Life is not something you ponder to explain

Hikayatin mo lahat ng kakilala mo na magkaroon ng kahit isa man lang paboritong libro sa buhay nila. Dahil wala nang mas kawawa pa sa mga taong literado pero hindi nagbabasa.

Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect.

Another secret we carry is that though drab outside - wreckage to the eye, mirrors a mortification - inside we flame with a wild life that is almost incommunicable.

I'm making a lot of noise as I walk.

And ordering me around is exactly the wrong way to make me do what you want.

The only exercise I get is playing sports because I hate the gym. I try to learn to love it.

The human capacity for compassion is not a reflex that is triggered automatically by the presence of another living thing.

With every word unspoken each moment comes undone.

If I know I make this much trouble, I never climb Everest.