One of the striking features of the form of globalisation that has now been established is that it is based on the premise that goods and even capital should be free to roam but labour must remain imprisoned within the nation state.

The scientist should treasure the riddles he can't solve, not explain them away at the outset.

The essential thing, the ultimate goal of politics and thought, is a bigger life for the individual. A bigger life – that remains the main objective…to increase our divine attributes to have moral life.

In a world of democracies, the most deserving basis of national differences is that the different states of the world should represent a form of moral specialisation within humanity.

I regard myself as a man without charm in a country of charmers.

In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born.

At every level the greatest obstacle to transforming the world is that we lack the clarity and imagination to conceive that it could be different