Our passion for learning ... is our tool for survival.

An organism at war with itself is doomed.

The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.

Religions contradict one another-on small matters, such as whether we should put on a hat or take one off on entering a house of worship, or whether we should eat beef and eschew pork or the other way around, all the way to the most central issues, such as whether there are no gods, one God, or many gods.

When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shinning because of distant nuclear fusion.

Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others?