The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate....Try science.

[S]cience has itself become a kind of religion.

In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soil.

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe

We were wanderers from the beginning.