paying taxes is a cheap price for a quiet conscience—much cheaper than actually having to get involved in the lives of their fellow citizens.

Regardless of whether people have free will, human flourishing requires that they live in an environment in which they are treated as if they did.

The percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010.

The human impulse behind the isolation of class is as basic as impulses get: People like to be around other people who understand them and to whom they can talk.

They don't know the distinction between taking care of a child and raising a child.

The average Harvard freshman in 1952 would have placed in the bottom 10 percent of the incoming class by 1960.

Data can bear on policy issues, but many of our opinions about policy are grounded in premises about the nature of human life and human society that are beyond the reach of data.

Responsibility for the consequences of actions is not the price of freedom, but one of its rewards.

A wise person knows that he should not allow his roots to grow too deep in this world, for the deeper they grow here, the shallower they become in spirituality.

On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet

[O]ne man's vulgarity is another's lyric.

Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

The reward is in doing, but doing without expecting anything...doing unselfishly.

I made a deal with myself that whenever I smoke weed, I have to be doing something productive: writing, recording, cutting a podcast, editing, etc.

A sincere seeker knows what his goal is: the highest Truth. He will not delay his journey. In spiritual life, we aspire for the highest Truth, for God, nothing else.

Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.

For most people, art is only valuable if other people say it is; and artists are only worthwhile if they are either rich and famous, or dead.