A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.

Families survive the terrible twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons.

Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.

I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

The fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it.

Empathy zooms you in on an individual and, as a result, it's narrow, it's innumerate, it's racist, it's very biased.

The effects of Twitter and Facebook and all those things on people's psychologies is a really interesting question to which nobody knows the answer.

I love teaching. I wouldn't take a job that didn't include it.

What I mean by "empathy" is putting yourself in other people's shoes, feeling what they feel.

I think empathy is really important for pleasure.

-and then what happened?- I asked him, but I had no desire to know. Whatever it was, it has to be ugly.

In Israel in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.

I came to teaching late - not until my forties - which is one reason why I'm not burned out.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

A realization of the Presence of God is the most powerful healing agency known to the mind of man.

England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere.

The average citizen expresses pride in the American Bill of Rights and then seeks to protect his real estate by restrictive covenants.

I spent so many years with people saying, 'Hey, you're like America's boyfriend!

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.

Nature is that lovely lady to whom we owe polio, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer.