One could not always put safety up front as the prime goal. Do that, and who would ever achieve anything of note?

I'm prepared to concede that stupidity does not help survival. One must after all understand not to poke a tiger with a stick. But intelligence leads to curiosity, and curiosity has never been a quality that helps one pour his or her genes into the pool. The truth must lie somewhere between. Whatever the reason, it is clearly mediocrity, at best, that lives and breeds.

Universal deities ... never seem to smile. Not in any culture. What's the point of having omnipotence if you don't enjoy it?

Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.

Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue.

It can provide horrendous weapons to idiots.

Most of us sleepwalk through our lives. We take all its glories, its wine, food, love, and friendship, its sunsets and its stars, its poetry and fireplaces and laughter, for granted. We forget that experience is not, or should not be, a casual encounter, but rather an embrace. Consequently, for too many of us, when we come to the end, we wonder where the years have gone. And we suspect we have not lived.