We shouldn't be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.

There is, especially in the American media, a deep belief that insincerity is better than no sincerity at all.

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

Control over the production and distribution of oil is the decisive factor in defining who rules whom in the Middle East.

We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.

There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.