There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

I give you the chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology and the foundations of a personal identity

Demagogues are so easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervour and god-fearing sincerity. Sincerity with nothing behind it takes so much practice. The practice can always be detected. Repetition. Great attempts to keep your attention on words.

Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.

The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.