Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group Groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together [is] surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

Since World War II, Japan has spawned enormous numbers of new religions featuring the supernatural.... In Thailand, diseases are treated with pills manufactured from pulverized sacred Scripture. Witches are today being burned in South Africa.... The worldwide TM [Transcendental Meditation] organization has an estimated valuation of $3 billion. For a fee, they promise to make you invisible, to enable you to fly.

We are the custodians of life's meaning.

Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand.

It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.

The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.