Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood.

Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right.

Waiting is so unusual that many of us can't stand in a queue for 30 seconds without getting out our phones to check for messages or to Google something.

The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.

I don't think anyone who genuinely embraced sincerity, charity and modesty could be intolerant or divisive.

You don't choose what you believe moment to moment, but choices you have made do shape what you come to believe.

Economics is uncertain because its fundamental subject matter is not money but human action. That's why economics is not the dismal science, it's no science at all.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

Love is indeed at root the product of the firings of neurons and release of hormones.

It may not have the virtuous ring of the golden rule, but the maxim "never say never" is one of the most important in ethics.

Dover's cliffs call to mind the Roman invasion; the Battle of Britain; our proximity to, yet difference from, mainland Europe; and international trade and exploration, both fair and exploitative.

An eternity is any moment opened with patience.

Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.

I think we have to understand that sugar is an essential component of food it's just that sugar in excess is an inappropriate and unhelpful diet.

There are actually two approaches to reside your daily life. One is as if absolutely nothing is really a miracle. The other is as if every little thing is a wonder

The bigger the State, the smaller the citizen

What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the servants offer and had said to him instead, “let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be - let me be a woman'?

All I wanted to do was help kids not feel alone, and stop kids from committing suicide.

Christ is no Moses, no exactor, no giver of laws, but a giver of grace, a Savior; he is infinite mercy and goodness, freely and bountifully given to us.

I've had 60 years of ups and downs, and all of the downs that I've had, I'm happy that I've had them because it's taught me to appreciate all the ups.

Being a poet is like having an invisible partner. It isn't easy. But you can't live without it either. Talent is only 10 per cent. The rest is obsession.