I may be flying a complicated airplane, rushing through space, but in this cabin I'm surrounded by simplicity and thoughts set free of time. How detached the intimate things around me seem from the great world down below. How strange is this combination of proximity and separation. That ground - seconds away - thousands of miles away. This air, stirring mildly around me. That air, rushing by with the speed of a tornado, an inch beyond. These minute details in my cockpit. The grandeur of the world outside. The nearness of death. The longness of life.

Unless science is controlled by a greater moral force, it will become the Antichrist prophesied by the early Christians.

In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.

I don't believe in taking unnecessary risks, but a life without risk isn't worth living.

Without death there would be no awareness of life, and the recurring selection and renewal that has caused life's progress would be ended.

The idea of racial inferiority or superiority is foreign to me. I can't feel inferior or superior to another man because of race, or in any way antagonistic to him. I judge by the individual, not by his race, and have always done so. I would rather have one of my children marry into a good family of any race than into a bad family of any other race.

The remedy for our social evils does not consist so much in changing the system of government as it does in increasing the general intelligence of the people so that they may learn how to govern.