You can't grow up without taking a few knocks on the way. All parents know that, but children when they're growing up, they take some knocks, and nasty knocks sometimes if they've been too protected.

All religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious.

You can't grow up without taking a few knocks on the way. All parents know that, but children when they're growing up, they take some knocks, and nasty knocks sometimes if they've been too protected.

While many Islamic countries pay lip service to the idea of freedom of religion, they don't put up with conversion from Islam to another religion.

I maintain that Western popular culture at its best is worthy of respect and should be cherished as much as the operas of Wagner.

Discussions of Western civilization are too often confined to works of high art that reflect a relatively narrow element of public taste and experience.

Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West.