Organic as a dandelion seed, [the ship of our imagination] will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts

In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.

In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields-mathematics, physics, some others-the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.

Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

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

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.