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

It is often said that having gone through any kind of suffering tends to makes you appreciate life more and live more in the present. I'm not sure how universal or long-lasting these effects really are.

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.

This is the deal: we are happy to single out people as superior just as long as they don't accept the description themselves. We want heroes and idols but we also want egalitarianism and that requires proclamations of humility from our Gods.

Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing.

Right and wrong are not simply matters of evolutionary impacts and what is natural.

People seem very arrogant when they say 'I'm right and you're wrong', but in practice we all believe we're right. We have a staggering arrogance in our own belief. That can be tempered by not being 100% certain; by being provisional. No matter what the debate is, very few people have the modesty to suspend judgement on a whole range of things; most intelligent people have an opinion and are expected to have an opinion by other people - but it always requires making a personal judgement that goes way-beyond your expertise. We do it all the time.