Freedom is the recognition of contingency.

National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.

There are credentials for admission to our democratic society [...]. You have to be educated in order to be a participant in our conversation So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have... an ambition of transcendence.

Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with.

Truth [is] what is better for us to believe.