A value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.

Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another

Unless you have the power to stop the government of Iran beheading teenagers for homosexual acts, there's not much to be done except deplore it unless you are willing to converse with people about why they thinking this is okay.

I started philosophy looking for answers. But along the way I came to prize exploring the questions. Progress in philosophy consists, I think, in a clearer delineation of the conceptual options, not in reaching determinate conclusions.

If someone hates you, they won't ask you for things.

A value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.

Plenty of people within the Moslem world are not engaged in a clash with te West and don't want to do so; and none of the terrorist acts was an attack by the Moslem world on the West. They were attacks by particular groups of Moslems on particular Western individuals or nations. If we allow ourselves to de driven to thinking of every Moslem as an enemy or every Westerner as a friend, for that matter in these circumstances, we'll have no basis for moving forward.