You should protest about the views of people you disagree with over major moral issues, and argue them down, but you should not try to silence them, however repugnant you find them. That is the bitter pill free speech requires us to swallow.

Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood.

No one who has understood even a fraction of what science has told us about the universe can fail to be in awe of both the cosmos and of science.

The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense of the world better than the alternatives.

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

People should not expect the state to protect them from fraudsters. If we do, we get into the habit of neglecting our own powers of intellectual discernment.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.