You stop planetary exploration, those people who do that extraordinary work are going to have to go do something else.

There are two ways to be rich: to have more or need less. It's estimated that we squander about 30 percent of our energy leaving the lights on, the refrigerator door open, and so on. Then there is the enormous amount of food that we expend huge amounts of energy to raise and then throw away.

I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems.

If the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, it's game over. It's control-alt-delete for civilization.

We are special in the sense that we can know our place in the cosmos. We can know our place in space. We are at least one of the cosmos's ways of knowing itself. That fills me with reverence and joy. Another insight I really want people to consider is this: everyone has gotten this far. Everyone you meet has made it this far. Nobody is superior to anyone else from an evolutionary standpoint.

If you have this idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you are denying, if you will, everything that you can touch and see. Youre not paying attention to whats happening in the universe around you.

We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.