We invest far off places with a certain romance... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game; none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds.

To live in the hearts of others is to never die in those we leave behind.

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.

My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.

we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there's no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.