Today [the voice of women] is being heard loud and clear. But I do not read the welcome triumph of feminism, social, economic, and creative, as a brief for postmodernism. The advance, while opening new avenues of expression and liberating deep pools of talent, has not exploded human nature into little pieces. Instead, it has set the stage for a fuller exploration of the universal traits that unite humanity.

Most people believe they know how they themselves think, how others think too, and even how institutions evolve. But they are wrong. Their understanding is based on folk psychology, the grasp of human nature by common sense ¾ defined (by Einstein) as everything learned to the age of 18 ¾ shot through with misconceptions, and only slightly advanced over ideas employed by the Greek philosophers

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

Adults forget the depths of languor into which the adolescent mind decends with ease. They are prone to undervalue the mental growth that occurs during daydreaming and aimless wandering

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.

The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured - especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.

In the attempt to make scientific discoveries, every problem is an opportunity — and the more difficult the problem, the greater will be the importance of its solution.