the utopian social hope which sprang up in nineteenth-century Europe is still the noblest imaginative creation of which we have record.

My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.

Solidarity is not discovered by reflection, but created. It is created by increasing our senstivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginialize people different from ourselves by thinking, 'They do not feel as WE would,' or 'There must always be suffering, so why not let THEM suffer?'

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.