We've tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar. Despite all our best efforts, we've not been very inventive. In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano. In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils. Monotheists talked about the king of kings. In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe. Few found the similarity suspicious.

Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable. . . .

There is a lurking fear that some things are not “meant" to be known, that some inquiries are too dangerous for human beings to make.

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

The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

Maxwell's Equations have had a greater impact on human history than any ten presidents.

Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation