Believers who have formulated such proofs [for God's existence] ... would never have come to believe as a result of such proofs

An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it.

Words are probes. Some reach very deep, some only to a little depth.

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.

The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas, that is what makes him a philosopher.

One can defend common sense against the attacks of philosophers only by solving their puzzles, i.e., by curing them of the temptation to attack common sense.

Black seems to make a colour cloudy, but darkness doesn't. A ruby could thus keep getting darker without ever becoming cloudy; but if it became blackish red, it would become cloudy.