Doubt, skepticism, innovation, and inquiry are the only means by which wonder, beauty, awe, and symmetry will be discovered.

The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.

It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Benito Mussolini had barely seized power in Italy before the Vatican made an official treaty with him, known as the Lateran Pact of 1929. Under the terms of this deal, Catholicism became the only recognized religion in Italy, with monopoly powers over matters such as birth, marriage, death, and education, and in return urged its followers to vote for Mussolini's party. Pope Pius XI described II Duce (“the leader”) as “a man sent by providence.”

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.