I think the biggest misconception is that everybody has to learn mathematics. That seems to be a complete mistake.

Intelligence may indeed be a benign influence creating isolated groups of philosopher-kings far apart in the heavens... On the other hand, intelligence may be a cancer of purposeless technological exploitation, sweeping across a galaxy as irresistibly as it has swept across our own planet.

I mean science was blamed for all the horrors of World War I, just as it's blamed today for nuclear weapons and quite rightly.

Things are always more complicated than most people believe.

The great advances in science usually result from new tools rather than from new doctrines.

We do not know how much of the environmental change is due to human activities and how much [is due] to long-term natural processes over which we have no control.

The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing.