The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

Powerful men in particular suffer from the delusion that human beings have no memories. I would go so far as to say that the distinguishing trait of powerful men is the psychotic certainty that people forget acts of infamy as easily as their parents birth

Consistency is a virtue for trains.

Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man's universe is the earth?

Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.