When I look up into the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what it is I really see there, I am constrained to say, ´there is no god´.

IT is reported of Margaret Fuller that she said she accepted the universe. "Gad, she'd better!" retorted Carlyle. Carlyle himself did not accept the universe in a very whole-hearted manner. Looking up at the midnight stars, he exclaimed: "A sad spectacle! If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly; if they be not inhabited, what a waste of space!"

The United States says "We're complying. We're following the disarmament obligation. Look at the quantitative reductions that are taking place." But, since '96, there really hasn't been progress on specific commitments that have been made. Perhaps most disturbing is this: that the United States and France in particular, since 1996, have expanded the range of circumstances under which they might use - they say they might use - nuclear weapons.

I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.

The countries outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty also are bound by that obligation [ Article Six of the treaty] according to, at least it's a strong implication of, a 1996 opinion of the International Court of Justice.

I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.

One can return to their place of birth, but one cannot go back to your youth.