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Science and technology derive from the effort to understand and control the natural environment. Familiarity with the history of science is essential to an awareness of the development of society.

We should treat individuals as individuals, rather than as instantiations of the statistical properties of the groups to which they belong. In other words, we should judge people by the content of their characters, not their sex chromosomes.

We were told that violence in itself is evil, and that, whatever the cause, it is unjustified morally. By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master? By what standards can we equate the violence of blacks who have been oppressed, suppressed, depressed and repressed for four centuries with the violence of white fascists. Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression.

Development cannot be seen purely as an economic affair, but rather as an overall social process which is dependent upon the outcome of man’s efforts to deal with his natural environment.

You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.

Our genes push us in certain directions, but our genes aren’t the only things shaping us, and thus we can often push right back.

... and what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions until all you can remember is a name.

Culture is like a smog. To live within it, you must breathe some of it in and, inevitably, be contaminated.

Anyone who bar-codes their employees isn’t likely to be the forgiving type, and the reflex of long-held obedience through hierarchy is usually enough to overcome fear of a combat death. That’s how you fight wars, after all—with soldiers who are more afraid of stepping out of line than they are of dying on the battlefield.

I paused and set down my glass, searching for the fine edge of deceit that always lies right up against the truth.

Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we'll hope for the best.

The essence of control is to remain hidden from view, is it not?