Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas.

Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places. Principle #2: Do not defend your property. Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape.

We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.

How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.