I'm here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn't make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

Cheap booze is a false economy.

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation - is that good for the world?

Of course, I do everything for money.

And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair.

The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.

There is an unusually high and consistent correlation between the stupidity of a given person and that person’s propensity to be impressed by the measurement of IQ.