Democracy is finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.

Civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices.

One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay which leads to death has already begun.

Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.

Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.

That is the truth about man - that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don't understand.

For democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions for insoluble problems.