Perhaps the biggest myth about cynicism is that it deepens with age. I think what really happens is that experience painfully rips away layers of scales from our eyes, and so we do indeed become more cynical about many of the things we naively accepted when younger.

I never thought I was cut out for a life of crime. I even felt guilty when I accidentally stole a Subbuteo catalogue, thinking it was free. But everyone has an inner rebel, and mine has finally found a natural outlet. My crime of choice is that, with a heart as cold as ice and no care for what society thinks, I steal wireless computer network time.

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

Since Plato, we have been considering the nature of knowledge, the meaning of meaning and the status of the physical world.

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger" is not a law of the universe. What it can be, if we so choose, is a resolution.

The mark of a mature, psychologically healthy mind is indeed the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity, but only as much as there really is. Uncertainty is no virtue when the facts are clear, and ambiguity is mere obfuscation when more precise terms are applicable.

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