Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.

If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

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

Clutching our crystals and religiously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in steep decline, unable to distinguish between what's true and what feels good, we slide, almost without noticing, into superstition and darkness.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen; the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired propensities - sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason - is worrisome.

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.