What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.

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

Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.

In the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don't kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.

Those who are determined to be 'offended' will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.