That [Exodus] occurred, I have no doubt.
It is the triumph of superior reason to live with folks who don't have any.
If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
The hallmark of a free society is that I may totally disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it until I die.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.
But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.
Compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism.
The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best.
Our appreciations, it was felt, could be so much more inclusive if we said that something, instead of being beautiful, was 'interesting'.