How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.

I think that there is no supernatural dimension. The natural world is quite wonderful enough. The more we know about it, the much more wonderful it is than any supernatural proposition.

We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

There is almost no country in Africa where it is not essential to know to which tribe, or which subgroup of which tribe, the president belongs. From this single piece of information you can trace the lines of patronage and allegiance that define the state.

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

It is a pity that...the majority of feminists and their allies have stuck to the dead ground of "Me Decade" possessive individualism, an ideology that has more in common than it admits with the prehistoric right, which it claims to oppose but has in fact encouraged.

The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity