There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society similar to a London society a highbrow literature celebrity society.

I was always fascinated by engineering. Maybe it was an attempt maybe to get my father's respect or interest or maybe it was just a genetic love of technology but I was always trying to build things.

How can a Man respect his Wife when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex?

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt.

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece.

Philosophy is an attempt by man to find cause and effect. Religion has the same goal.

Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world you must make that attempt. That's morality that's religion. That's art. That's life.

But I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation for us to feel more protected.

Religion oh just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.