“A weak spirit which is always open to persuasion, first one way and then the other, can never be relied upon.”

“I leave it to the faithful to burn each other's churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can be always relied upon to do”

“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.”

“Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid. ”

“Christ is a persuasion, a form evoking desire, and the whole force of the gospel depends upon the assumption that this persuasion is also peace: that the desire awakened by the shape of Christ and his church is one truly reborn as agape, rather than merely the way in which a lesser force succumbs to a greater, as an episode in the endless epic of power. (3)”

“[A] resistance that dispenses with consolations is always stronger than one which relies on them.”