Ours is the first generation that has grown up with science-fiction ideas.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

Accommodation to change, the thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures are keys to the survival of civilization and perhaps of the human species.

There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

The cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be.

If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.

Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient.