The measure of an education,” you write elsewhere, “is that you acquire some idea of the extent of your ignorance.” And that’s all that “agnosticism” really means: it is an acknowledgment of ignorance.

Some people say it’s a sign of intelligence to be able to keep two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time, and it can be a sign of intelligence. It can also be a sign of stupidity, or of unwillingness to make up the mind.

Every advance in human civilization, from the spread of science and literacy to the abolition of slavery, has had to meet the objection that it violated God-given laws.

The test of a well-conducted argument is not its ability to convert or to persuade. It lies in its capacity to refine or to redefine the positions of the other side.

Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Simply put, he is a writer who can talk and a speaker who can write. Indeed, he often emphasizes the connection between the two, insisting that good writing is impossible without good speaking.1 He has based his career on this essential premise, to wit, that language must be mastered before it can be effectively deployed. Irving.

No serious person is without contradictions. The test lies in the willingness or ability to recognize and confront them.

One may choose to be altruistic, whatever that may mean, but by definition one may not be compelled into altruism.

The contrarian dogma is simple and easy to understand: “Whatever is popular is wrong,” as Oscar Wilde proclaimed at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

Trump’s plan is to do nothing boldly.