“The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics and homosexuals. Humanitarian reforms such as the elimination of cruel … More Quote of the Day

“The local peasant is as stupid as he is stubborn, and the cudgel will instruct him more quickly than hunger or imprisonment.” –Mikołaj Pobóg-Rutkowski, Polish nobleman and landowner in a letter dated 18 December 1783, pleading with the authorities to allow him to beat every tenth peasant in the village of Vyshatychi.  Quoted by John-Paul … More Quote of the Day

“Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy,” said my father as he watched the three beauties. “But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?” ― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence      

“One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”–Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. It’s Even Worse Than … More Quote of the Day

“I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”– Stephen Colbert

“Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.”–Thomas Merton

“We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.”–Dorothy Day

“You wouldn’t believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs.”–Steven Pinker

“Jewish tradition teaches us that for the next ten days, the Book of Life is open. As millions of Jews ask God to inscribe their names in that book, we recognize how much lies beyond our control. Yet during these days of awe, we recognize our tremendous power to make a difference in our lives … More Quote of the Day

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” ― Laurence J. Peter