Sublime

young woman of conventional middle-class privilege and promise whose situation was such that many people tended to overlook the fact that the state’s case against the accused was not invulnerable.

Be reasonable and expect others to be reasonable.

Although divine revelation “had no weight with me,” he decided that religious practices were beneficial because they encouraged good behavior and a moral society. So he began to embrace a morally fortified brand of deism that held God was best served by doing good works and helping other people.

our ability to think well will be determined to some considerable degree by who those others are: what we might call the moral form of our community. A willingness to be “broken on the floor,” for example, is in itself a testimony to belief that the people you’re debating are decent people who don’t want to harm or manipulate you—whereas if you

probity,

Could not desire and rarity, he urged, be sufficient for the supercharger to be granted leeway,

I hope, with all my heart, that I look refined and humble, just as an easygoing billionaire ought to appear.