There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

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.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

We misjudge anybody who's different from us and the Jews diverge from our type, ethnically and religiously. That's their chief offense, but there are particular causes.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet. There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause. Then religion mustn't interfere with the state - so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.

Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify.