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.

Vegetation is really controlling what happens...whereas the emphasis in the climate models has always been on the atmosphere.

The Besicovitch style is architectural. He builds out of simply elements a delicate and complicated architectural structure, usually with a hierarchical plan, and then, when the building is finished, the completed structure leads by simple arguments to an unexpected conclusion. Every Besicovitch proof is a work of art, as carefully constructed as a Bach fugue.

Life is nature's way to give mind oportunities it wouldn't otherwise had.

We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we're the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running. Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don't really need to survive.

There are two different ways of looking at the universe; and it's the same universe with two different windows. The science window gives you a view of the world, and the religion window gives you a totally different view. You can't look at both of them at the same time, but they're both true.

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.