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

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.

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.

Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing.

But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?

It doesn't cost anything to pay attention.

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Communism, ” I observed, “is a pile of wank.

Never underestimate the power of the ocean.

The incentive that you give to your youth is going to be the make-or-break future of the country.

In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie.

Jones looks like he wants to slug me, which is only subtly different from his usual way of looking at me like I'm a slug.

I still know I have an awful lot to learn, and I hope I'm put in whatever situation it is that's gonna help me learn it, or that I'll get to watch really good people do what they do.

I don't really look at celebrities as role models - I just don't see them like that. I guess it's because I'm in that world so I know that no one is perfect.