Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.

Since religion is a primitive form of philosophy — an attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality — many of its myths are distorted, dramatized allegories based on some element of truth, some actual, if profoundly elusive, aspect of man's existence.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.

Ideas are the greatest and most crucially practical power on earth.

When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.

I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.

This is the age othe common man, they tell us-a title which any man may claim to the extent osuch distinction as he has managed not to achieve.