In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.

The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

...the idea of a spiritual part of our nature that survives death, the notion of an afterlife, ought to be easy for religions and nations to sell. This is not an issue of which we might anticipate widespread skepticism. People will want to believe it, even if the evidence is meager to nil... compelling testimony ... provides that our personality, character, memory ... resides in the matter of the brain, it is easy not to focus on it, to find ways to evade the weight of the evidence.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.

The usual rejoinder to someone who says 'They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Galileo' is to say 'But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown'.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.