By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.

I know the two great commandments, and I'd better get on with them.

It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at that moment, we expected some other good.

If you live for the next world, you get this one in the deal; but if you live only for this world, you lose them both.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says.

A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.

The essence of religion, in my view, is the thirst for an end higher than natural ends.