"It was a real surprise to me to come across the evidence that Christianity might once have been a danced religion. Certainly, some of the early church leaders thought this was great and spoke of what seems to have been circle dancing, perhaps around an altar."

"A research group found that 56 percent of major companies surveyed in the late '80s agreed that 'employees who are loyal to the company and further its business goals deserve an assurance of continued employment.' A decade later, only 6 percent agreed. It was in the '90s that companies started weeding people out as a form of cost reduction."

"Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous."

"For a long time on Earth humans didn't worship good gods; that's a new idea. The ancient Greek gods, the Hindu gods, are fairly amoral, most of them. We get stuck when we insist that God be both good and all-powerful."

"Elves have this superhuman strength, yet they're so graceful. Tolkien created them to be angelic spirits, but I also saw Legolas as something out of the Seven Samurai."

"The highest expression of strength is tenderness toward the vulnerable. For where clarity resides, peace inevitably follows — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"We are born weak, we need strength helpless, we need aid foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education."

"Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, peoples, and times it is the rule."