Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work.

There is a bigotry rampant in America, against evangelicals. It is the last respectable bigotry.

Our capacity for self-deception has no known limits

Atheists in our midst are proof that all consciences can be accommodated here, even those that have no ground for holding that conscience is sacred, inalienable, and prior to civil society.

To go into a competition and not strive to win is to be a dishonest competitor.

Command by instinct is swifter, subtler, deeper, more accurate, more in touch with reality than command by conscious mind. The discovery takes one's breath away.

There is a certain point of unity within the self, and between the self and its world, certain complicity and magnetic mating, a certain harmony, that conscious mind and will cannot direct. Perhaps analysis and the separate mastery of each element are required before the instincts are ready to assume command, but only at first. Command by instinct is swifter, subtler, deeper, more accurate, more in touch with reality than command by conscious mind. The discovery takes one's breath away.