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Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely.
Today, in contrast, the people who reject the liberal story don’t offer any coherent alternative, and actually take pride in that.
Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Referendums and elections are always about human feelings, not about human rationality.
Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech.
Liberalism has always cherished political equality, and it gradually came to realize that economic equality is almost as important.
War spreads ideas, technologies, and people far more quickly than commerce does.
Yet secular people are a minority.
the mark of science is the willingness to admit failure and try a different tack.
We should never underestimate human stupidity.
How can we make nations, religions, and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world?
Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.
We think we know a lot, even though individually we know very little, because we treat knowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own.
If they remain at the center of power, they will have an extremely distorted vision of the world. If they venture to the margins, they will waste too much of their precious time.
“A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.”
Nothing is inherently beautiful, sacred, or sexy; human feelings make it so.
