Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.
Atheists tend to read only each other’s books and not the work of the religious thinkers they are supposedly refuting.
Preaching Christianity to skeptics without first setting out the praeambula fidei [preambles of faith], and then complaining when they don’t accept it, is like yelling in English at someone who only speaks Chinese, and then dismissing him as a fool when he doesn’t understand you. In both cases, while there is certainly a fool in the picture, it isn’t the listener.
For faith, properly understood, does not contradict reason in the least; indeed. . . it is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it.
Dawkins’s problem is that he doesn’t know the difference between probabilistic empirical theorizing and strict metaphysical demonstration, and thus misreads an attempt at the latter as if it were the former. That is not to say that Aquinas might not be mistaken at some point in the argument – though obviously I don’t think he is – but if you’re going to show that he is, you first need to understand what kind of argument he is giving, and thus what kind of mistake he’d be making if he’s made one at all.
How significant is Aristotle? Well, I wouldn’t want to exaggerate, so let me put it this way: Abandoning Aristotelianism, as the founders of modern philosophy did, was the single greatest mistake ever made in the entire history of Western thought.
My ability to get through my day greatly depends on the relationship that I have with other women. . . We have to be able to champion other women. We have to root for each other's successes and not delight in one another's failures.
To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
Rise early. It is the early bird that catches the worm. Don't be fooled by this absurd law; I once knew a man who tried it. He got up at sunrise and a horse bit him.
The worst thing in the world is to feel like people turn on the TV and say, oh god, it's that guy again. I'm trying to avoid that.