We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I'm very fond of it. It's done you no harm. Please don't attack it." That's not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste any neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.

The sacred truth of science is that there are no sacred truths.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.

Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.