The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.

Most human beings, though in varying degrees, desire to control, not only their own lives but also the lives of others

I must, before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet -- a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and the fearful passionless force of non-human things.

There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.