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.

When philosophers talk about reason they often have in mind Having been in the business of philosophy more than half my life, I have learned that reason doesn't change many minds. But there's a more ordinary sense of resonableness, which involves not just logic but a sensitivity to other peoples real concerns, a desire to understand, even when you don't agree. Many people are reasonable in this way.I'm willing to think that the world will be made better by the conversations of reasonable people, even if there are unreasonable people and people who don't want to converse as well.

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

In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you're playing

There are many agreements across the so-called "world religions," at a certain level of abstraction. But when it comes to applying them in concrete situations they may lead to incompatible decisions. As an example, some people think that Christian ideas of sexual modesty suggest that homosexuals should be locked up, some people think that they mean that the churches should recongize gay marriages. But everyone believes in sexual modesty. I think there are universal moral truths, whether or not everyone accepts them. Here's one very low level but important one: it's very bad to torture people.

The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.