“Arts and disciplines of that kind are fundamentally selfish; they’re all designed to benefit the pupil—not the world - "Ishmael”

“TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.”

“If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual - "Ishmael”

“There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”

“A week ago," Ishmael said, "when we were talking about laws, you said that there's only one kind of law about how people should live--the kind that can be changed by a vote. What do you think now? Can the laws that govern competition in the community be changed by a vote?""No. But they're not absolutes, like the laws of aerodynamics. They can be broken.""Can't the laws of aerodynamics be broken?""No. If your plane isn't built according to the law, it doesn't fly.""But if you push it off a cliff, it stays in the air, doesn't it?""For a while.""The same is true of a civilization that isn't built in accordance with the law of limited competition... Any species that, as a matter of policy, exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community...""Yes.""Then what have we discovered here?""We've discovered a piece of certain knowledge about how people ought to live. Must live in fact.""The law we've outlined here enables species to live--enables species to survive, including the human. It won't tell you whether mood-altering drugs should be legalized or not. It won't tell you whether premarital sex is good or bad. It won't tell you if capital punishment is right or wrong. It *will* tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that's the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs... You might say that this is one of the law's basic operations: Those who threaten the stability of the community by defying the law automatically eliminate themselves.”

“To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.”

“If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.”