But amid much elegance and precision, the details of life and the Universe also exhibit haphazard, jury-rigged arrangements and much poor planning. What shall we make of this: an edifice abandoned early in construction by the architect?

We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world.

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.

Recent research shows that many children without enough to eat wind up with diminished capacity to understand and learn (“cognitive impairment” ). Children don't have to be starving for this to happen. Even mild undernourishment — the kind most common among poor people in America — can do it.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor, are beginning not to work.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.