Of course, if you photograph the behavior of women and men at a particular time in history, in a particular situation, you will capture differences. But the error lies in inferring that a snapshot is a lasting picture. What women and men do at a moment in time tells us nothing about what women and men are in some unvarying sense - or about what they can be.

During McCarthyism, teachers feared for their jobs if they belonged to a left-wing group. Today teachers fear for their jobs if they hug a crying child. As in all moral panics, an accusation is enough to destroy a person's life. Hysteria trumps evidence.

In the horrifying calculus of self-deception, the greater the pain we inflict on others, the greater the need to justify it to maintain our feelings of decency and self-worth.

For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference.

No one seems to have learned, or can remember, the magic words that calm people when they are frightened or threatened: "I'm sorry; I didn't see you; are you all right?" The inability to speak these words, I observe, goes right along with a propensity for mindless insults.

Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and they are usually denigrated for their efforts.

Science is a form of arrogance control.