What's been gratifying is to live long enough to see molecular biology and evolutionary biology growing toward each other and uniting in research efforts.

Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science ... Interpretation is the logical channel of consilient explanation between science and the arts. The arts ... also nourish our craving for the mystical.

I think that's my nature, to want to bring people together rather than to try to bombard them into agreement.

Humanity, in the desperate attempt to fit 8 billion or more people on the planet and give them a higher standard of living, is at risk of pushing the rest of life off the globe.

In the end ... success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.

It's always been a dream of mine, of exploring the living world, of classifying all the species and finding out what makes up the biosphere.

For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.