The intimate relation between humor and faith is derived from the fact that both deal with the incongruities of our existence. Laughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially. Faith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence, which threaten the very meaning of our life.

The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.

I cannot worship the abstractions of virtue: she only charms me when she addresses herself to my heart, speaks through the love from which she springs.

It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.

All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

In the Old Testament, the God of the Prophets never was completely on Israel's side. There was a primitive national religion, but it was always a transcendent God who had judgment first in the House of God. This is the true religion. It has a sense of a transcendent majesty and a transcendent meaning so that that puts myself and the foe under the same judgment.