It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world.

I want to understand more about the world while Im still here.

I think about my editor when I write. She's a good friend, too.

What Plato was really asking was perhaps why a horse was a horse, and not, for example, a cross between a horse and a pig.

The sophists were as a rule men who had traveled widely and seen different forms of government. Both conventions and local laws in the city-states could vary widely. This led the Sophists to raise the question of what was natural and what was socially induced. By doing this, they paved the way for social criticism in the city-state of Athens.

When we die, as when the scenes have been fixed on to celluloid and the scenery is pulled down and burnt — we are phantoms in the memories of our descendants. Then we are ghosts, my dear, then we are myths. But still we are together. We are the past together, we are a distant past. Beneath the dome of the mysterious stars, I still hear your voice.

the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face.