How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.

Shouldn't atheist have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness. Where does pleasure come from?

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.

The modern habit of saying "This is my opinion, but I may be wrong" is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong, I say that is not my opinion. The modern habit of saying "Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me" – the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.