We are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does not deny our humanity; it does not prevent us from pursuing the good, the true and the beautiful. But it would be a great mistake to ignore where we have come from in our attempt to determine where we are going.

What an astonishing thing a book is.

[Kepler] preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, and that is the heart of science.

The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.

The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time.

There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen.