I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson - the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

Rampaging horsemen can conquer; only the city can civilize.

No idea is ever dead until those who believe in it say it's dead.

Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.

It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.

It heartens me to think of Verdi who composed thundering operas in his eighties; Michelangelo who did fine work in his ninetieth year, and Titian, who painted better than ever in his one hundredth.

If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.