A fire-eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself.

I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

How then to enforce peace? Not by reason, certainly, nor by education. If a man could not look at the fact of peace and the fact of war and choose the former in preference to the latter, what additional argument could persuade him? What could be more eloquent as a condemnation of war than war itself? What tremendous feat of dialectic could carry with it a tenth the power of a single gutted ship with its ghastly cargo?

It's humbling to think that all animals, including human beings, are parasites of the plant world.

Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don't know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.

There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state. -(from "The Bicentennial Man) story)