It is difficult to offend a New Yorker.

It is difficult to offend a New Yorker.

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a read more

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble.

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and read more

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

I cannot believe that this country cannot come together around some values what these kids need is a moral life... read more

I cannot believe that this country cannot come together around some values what these kids need is a moral life... the issue is not ideas, it is conduct. The real question is how we reach these young people morally, and what do we bring to them.

What I have absolutely no sympathy with is the legislator, the man who seeks, for his own profit, to exploit read more

What I have absolutely no sympathy with is the legislator, the man who seeks, for his own profit, to exploit the weaknesses of those who are unable to help themselves and then to fasten some moral superscription upon it. This I loathe so much that I cannot conceivably explain how much it is.

Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothers they have read more

Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothers they have never sinned, have they? They are apostles, they are the descendants of priests; one can only wonder from what source they draw their indignation, and above all how much they have pocketed to do this, and in any case what it has done for them.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy read more

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you read more

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens,
and found them both sublime. On the read more

Kant, as we all know, compared moral law to the starry heavens,
and found them both sublime. On the naturalistic hypothesis we
should rather compare it to the protective blotches on a beetle's
back, and find them both ingenious.