“Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong.”

Interview with Oriana Fallaci (2 December 1979), Corriere della Sera
Interviews

The Times of India, 10 June 2009
Sourced from newspapers and magazines
Context: Whenever you say, "I do not know something," you are flexible. Whenever you think, "I know it," you become rigid. This rigidity is not just attitude; it percolates into every aspect of your life. This rigidity is also the cause of an enormous amount of suffering in the world.

Source: Naked Empire

"Exploring The Religious Naturalist Option", 13.7: Cosmos & Culture (23 November 2014) http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/11/23/366104014/exploring-the-religious-naturalist-option
Context: Scientific inquiry has provisioned us with a mind-boggling new core narrative — the epic of evolution, the epic of creation, the universe story, big history, everybody's story — where humans and human cultures are understood to be emergent from and, hence, a part of nature.
Naturalists adopt this account as their core narrative, with full recognition that these understandings will certainly deepen and may shift with further scientific inquiry. They adopt the story currently on offer and do not simply select features of the story that support preferred theories of nature. … A religious naturalist is a naturalist who has adopted the epic as a core narrative and goes on to explore its religious potential, developing interpretive, spiritual and moral/ethical responses to the story.
Importantly, these responses are not front-loaded into the story as they are in the traditions. Therefore, the religious naturalist engages in a process, both individually and in the company of fellow explorers, to discover and experience them. These explorations are informed and guided by the mindful understandings inherent in our human traditions, including art, literature, philosophy and the religions of the world.

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

1999

Letter to Richard Price (8 January 1789)
1780s

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 61
Context: The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.