And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won’t tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they’re old enough to bear it; and when they learn they’ll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!

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 cannot rationalize what is not rational to begin with - as if lying were called truthization. There is no way to obtain more truth for a proposition by bribery, flattery, or the most passionate argument - you can make more people believe the proposition, but you cannot make it more true.

If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.

It is triple ultra forbidden to respond to criticism with violence. There are a very few injunctions in the human art of rationality that have no ifs, ands, buts, or escape clauses. This is one of them. Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever.

I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised.

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