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

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.

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

...mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.

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.

Sensible Catholics have for generations been ignoring the views on contraception held by reactionary old men in the Vatican, but alas, since it is the business of all religious doctrines to keep their votaries in a state of intellectual infancy (how else do they keep absurdities seeming credible?), insufficient numbers of Catholics have been able to be sensible.

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