The strength of a theory is not what it allows, but what it prohibits; if you can invent an equally persuasive explanation for any outcome, you have zero knowledge.

[...] intelligent people only have a certain amount of time (measured in subjective time spent thinking about religion) to become atheists. After a certain point, if you're smart, have spent time thinking about and defending your religion, and still haven't escaped the grip of Dark Side Epistemology, the inside of your mind ends up as an Escher painting.

Physiologically adult humans are not meant to spend an additional 10 years in a school system; their brains map that onto "I have been assigned low tribal status". And so, of course, they plot rebellion - accuse the existing tribal overlords of corruption plot, perhaps to split off their own little tribe in the savanna, not realizing that this is impossible in the Modern World.

I'm lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that's all I'm about!

If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he'd tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.

You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.

What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.