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.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.

We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

One trend that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media is reassuring people it's alright not to know anything. That to me is far more dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous.