Unhappy, let alone angry, religious people provide more persuasive arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of atheists.

In much of the West, the well educated have been taught to believe that they can know nothing and that they can draw no independent conclusions about truth, unless they cite a study and “experts”...

Although images of perfection in people’s personal lives can cause unhappiness, images of perfect societies ‘ ‘ ? utopian images ‘ ‘ ? can cause monstrous evil. In fact, forcefully changing society to conform to...

Whatever one does for a living, three questions need to be confronted before it is too late: What really matters to me? What price do my spouse and kids pay for my career success? What...

Those who believe in nothing are very, very jealous and angry at those who believe in something.

Complexity and profundity have been equated by the academic culture just as fame and significance have been conflated by the popular culture. Fame and significance have nothing to do with one another; and complexity and...

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it’s very complex, it’s very profound.

The larger the state, the more callous it becomes… the colder its heart. It is also true that the bigger the corporation, the more callous its heart. But unlike the state, corporations have competition and...

racial tensions” is based on the actual behavior of the vast majority of white Americans, nothing white America can do will affect the perceptions of many black Americans or of the leftist libel.

All those who support the American war in Iraq should make a deal with anyone opposed to the war. Offer to answer any 20 questions the opponents wish to ask if they will answer just...

There’s a lot more power in calm than in vituperation.

Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or...

Not only do we have a right to be happy, we have an obligation to be happy because our happiness has an effect on everyone around us.

Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes even perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared.

My tragic view of life… leads me to have little patience with the chronic complaining I hear in modern society from people who have so much yet act as if life and society have conspired...

if you do not share the universities’ values, it could be a big mistake to send your children to college before they are intellectually and morally prepared for the indoctrination-rather-than-education they will receive there. Therefore,...

There is little correlation between the circumstances of people’s lives and how happy they are.

More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.

Socialism values equality more than liberty.

The ’60s redefined narcissism as idealism.

Those who are compassionate when they should be tough will be tough when they should be compassionate.

When you are guaranteed you will win, you can take very inflammatory, very extreme positions. If you have to run in a district where where you might lose, you will move to the center. That...

“I am bored” generally means “I am boring”.

People can become addicted to fame, money, and attention as deeply as they become addicted to drugs.

When I grew up, the conservatives were the isolationists and the liberals were the idealists. Now it’s reversed.

The idea that you earn things – that you earn respect, that you earn income, responsibility. the vote, punishment… these ideas are anathema to the liberal mind.

There is much less envy of the rich by the poor than there is of the happy by the unhappy; by those who believe by those who dont believe.

Because gratitude is the key to happiness, anything that undermines gratitude must undermine happiness. And nothing undermines gratitude as much as expectations. There is an inverse relationship between expectations and gratitude: The more expectations you...

All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.

Men need rule books. Women want men to intuit what they want. And only about 2% of men can do that, and most of them are not heterosexual.

How a society channels male aggression is one of the greatest questions as to whether that society will survive. That’s why I am not against violence in the media, I am against the glorification of...

Compromise, while at times morally necessary or at least justifiable, is more often only the first permission for a person (or society) to begin a long downhill descent.

I have been with many men approaching death; and not one has ever said, ‘ ‘ ?I only regret that I didn’t spend more time at the office.

Conservatives divide the world in terms of good and evil while liberals do it in terms of the rich and poor.

If your religion doesn’t teach you the difference between good and evil, your religion is worse than useless.

It is extremely difficult to do anything constructive, let alone deep, on daily commercial television, especially on a talk show.