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.

The trouble with being a priest was that you eventually had to take the advice you gave to others.

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.

Because a doubt is not a denial. Doubt is a powerful tool, and it should be applied to history.

....Nature imposes nothing on you that Nature doesn't prepare you to bear.

When Holy Church occasionally hinted that she still considered her authority to be supreme over all nations and superior to the authority of states, men in these times tended to snicker.

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.