Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.

Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.

Morality comes from a commitment to treat other as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe.

The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero.

The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise

The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs.

An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk about the solar system model of the atom as though the atom were like a sun and moon and planets.