Listen, my dear Cors, why don't you forgive God for allowing pain? If He didn't allow it, human courage, bravery, nobility, and self-sacrifice would all be meaningless things.

....to abuse the intellect for reasons of pride, vanity, or escape from responsibility, is the fruit of that same tree.

Men must fumble awhile with error to separate it from truth, I think- as long as they don't seize the error hungrily because it has a pleasanter taste.

The captain looked defensive. "You regard our customs as primitive?"Every society to its own tastes, captain. The wisdom of one society would be folly for another. Who is qualified to judge? Only the universe, which passes the judgment of survival on all peoples.

Ask for an omen, then stone it when it comes -- de essentia hominum.

To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law - a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.

I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just a little devious in his sanity.