Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come?

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.

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

The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.

The price we pay for anticipation of the future is anxiety about it

Scientists make mistakes. Accordingly, it is the job of the scientist to recognize our weakness, to examine the widest range of opinions, to be ruthlessly self-critical. Science is a collective enterprise with the error-correction machinery often running smoothly.