'With his customary clarity and acumen, Italy's oldest and wisest political thinker reflects in these essays upon morality's relation to politics, on the nature and sources of prejudice, on why one can be tolerant without being sceptical, on how morals are linked to a religious vision of the world and on the thought that "followers of reason alone know their limits, and they are precluded from going beyond them".'Professor Steven Lukes, FBA, European University Institute 'Bobbio ... has been a remarkably influential figure in practical politics. A leading luminary of the political wing of the Italian Resistance, twice imprisoned by Mussolini, he became after the war a sympathetic yet stringent critic of the Italian Communist Party ... Today, still active at the age of 91, he is an Italian life senator, an emeritus professor, and a figure of sage-like, oracular status ... [These pieces] have some sharp insights to offer into the distinction between tolerance and scepticism, the sources of human prejudice and the relations between ethics and politics.' Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books 'This book is remarkable for its capacity to arouse incisive thinking about everyday problems, and to convince "deeply and yet meekly".' Millennium