From time to time, it is worth wandering around the fuzzy border regions of what you do, if only to remind yourself that no human activity is an island.

Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway.

I'm not one of these people who is sour about academia. I'm very lucky not to be in academia, but I am an absolute parasite. While I was writing my book on comparative philosophy I was drawing on some fantastic scholars - university based people. The academy is absolutely necessary, but there should also be a role for those bringing it together. It's such a frustration sometimes.

Society needs both justice and compassion, a head and a heart, if it is to be civilised.

Love is indeed at root the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones.

Indeed, without emotion it seems unlikely we can even have morality.

The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.