Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

We can't help it. Life looks for life.

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.

It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us.