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

There is a lurking fear that some things are not “meant" to be known, that some inquiries are too dangerous for human beings to make.

We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.

Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The fires would burn out of control until they put themselves out... The resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia... It could be carried around the world... [and] the consequences could be dire. Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it should affect the war plans.

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.