Nature admits no hierarchy of beauty or usefulness or importance.

Cheat? Good heavens, this is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat. Now, give me my robe and put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.

A university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, something quite different.

Atheism is not just about not believing there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is he?

Humanism is an approach to life which encourages ethical and fulfilling living on the basis of reason and humanity, and rejects superstition and religion. The most immediate impact of living as a Humanist is that we believe this life is all there is - so what we do and the choices we make really count.

You can never hope to recapture the first fine careless rapture as the poet put it, but it stays with you like a good acid trip.

If there were a God he would want us to be better spirited than to take his word for everything.