Don’t kid yourself, Friday; knowing too much is a capital offense. In politics it always has been. — Robert A. Heinlein

Stupid fools look just as good as military geniuses until the fighting starts.

I think that you are immune to the temptations of religion. If you are not, I cannot help you, any more than I could keep you from acquiring a drug habit. A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong—and you are strong. The great trouble with religion—any religion—is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask in at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason—but one cannot have both.

But I do not willingly involve us in nationalistic wars; the side of the angels is seldom self-evident.