...the nonexistence of God makes more difference to some of us than to others. To me, it means that there is no absolute morality, that moralities are sets of social conventions devised by humans to satisfy their needs.

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate.

Africans had to be taught that nudity is wicked; this was done very cheaply by missionaries.

Our use of the phrase 'The Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. [...] From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilisation, but quite the contrary. [...] To us it seems that West-European civilisation is civilisation, but this is a narrow view.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.