Man is born to trouble. Man is born for trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded--under torch and hammer and chisel--into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God.

Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others.

In the Darwinian world, self-preservation is the ultimate shiny good.

Cowards live for the sake of living, but for heroes, life is a weapon, a thing to be spent, a gift to be given to the weak and the lost and the weary, even to the foolish and the cowardly.

The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not pretend there is no danger . Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.

You fainted,' Tom said. Reg coughed. No, I didn't,' he said. 'Women faint. People afraid of needles faint. Men black out.

Marx called religion an opiate, and all too often it is. But philosophy is an anaesthetic, a shot to keep the wonder away.