The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.

When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.

Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.

All great power has to do to destroy itself is persist in trying to do the impossible.

Thou shalt not let a day pass without rereading something great.

As a rule, the most dangerous ideas are not the ones that divide people but those on which they agree.

Like all wage slaves, he had two crosses to bear: the people he worked for and the people he worked with

To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man's universe is the earth?

It is often only in our trials that we become aware that our courage or patience or faith could use some polish.

This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.

Gift-wrap the framed artwork on your walls and rehang them - what's nicer than a wall of presents to look at?

I'm sure that people who have been tweeting funny things have ended up on writing staffs of a late night show.

You look up to your heroes and you shouldn't be intimidated by them; you should be inspired by them.

We thought philosophy ought to be patient and unravel people's mental blocks. Trouble with doing that is, once you've unravelled them, their heads fall off.

The only way you can check Gretzky is to hit him when he is standing still singing the national anthem.

Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all waiting, then about halfway through the second hour you start cursing the creep who burned you, because nothing is happening...and then ZANG!

I'm doing quite a lot of painting on stones - little funny fish and animals.

Build a dream and the dream will build you.