Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.

A million million years gives us some time to prepare for the end . . . let us make the best of it.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos that the more tragic parts of life become endurable.

If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.

Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.

Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason. Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety.