"Some neo-Platonists worshipped [Plato] as a God. They might easily have chosen a worse man to worship. It is even possible that the worship of Plato is the highest point to which religion has ever risen. .. Plato's honesty, while not unblemished, was certainly far in advance of that of the average god. Still, to worship him was also, surely, a low point in the history of philosophy."
- David Stove, The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies

"The more one peruses [Aristotle], and ponders upon him, the more one realizes the wide range, the almost universal scope of his misinformation."
- Will Cuppy, How To Tell Your Friends From the Apes

"Smoking is, if not my life, then at least my hobby. I love to smoke. Smoking is fun. Smoking is cool. Smoking is, as far as I am concerned, the entire point of being an adult. It makes growing up genuinely worthwile. .. Most people who smoke will eventually contract a fatal disease and die. But they don't brag about it, do they? Most people who ski, play professional football, or drive race cars, will not die - at least not in the act - and yet they are the ones with glamorous images, the expensive equipment and the mythic proportions. Why this should be I cannot say, unless it is simply that the average American does not know a daredevil when he sees one. And it is to the average American I address this discourse, because it is the average American who is responsible for the recent spate of no-smoking laws and antismoking sentiment. That it is the average American who must take the blame I have no doubt, for unquestionably the above-average American has better things to do."
- Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies

"Playing with computers, game theory and simulation models .. actually make things worse by providing the 'expert advisers' with an excuse for shirking the duty to speak the truth plainly and to expose the chimeras. When used with circumspection a computer can render many services, but adulation of this wondrous gadget impairs the progress of understanding, and increases the likelihood of disastrous decisions because .. the worst mistakes most often come not from faulty deductions, but from unexamined false premises and proneness to delusion."
- Stanislav Andreski, Social Sciences as Sorcery

"Even the most cursory survey of human beliefs reveal that man has no innate inclination to seek the truth; and that absurdity and obscurity, far from repelling, have for most people an irresistible attraction. .. clarity and logic impose on our thinking severe constraints which prevent it from wholeheartedly ministering to our desires, hates and whims."
- Stanislav Andreski, Social Sciences as Sorcery

"I grant you there are plenty of old-fashioned and pretty ineffective ways to tell one's friends from the Apes. What could be simpler, for instance, when you are at the Zoo? The Apes are in cages. Yes, but when you are not at the Zoo, what then?"
- Will Cuppy, How To Tell Your Friends From the Apes

"Young normal Tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a Tiger, you may rest assured that it is abnormal. Once in a while a normal Tiger will eat somebody, but he doesn't mean anything by it."
- Will Cuppy, How To Tell Your Friends From the Apes