I admire our ancestors, whoever they were. I think the first self-conscious person must have shaken in his boots. Because as he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature. He sees himself against nature. He looks at the vastness of the universe and it looks hostile.

It's just not easy enough to say that I pray and God will accomplish.

Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don't think that's the case.

Hysterical fundamentalism is not the way into the future; it is the last gasp of the past.

What happened in the Western world was that Plato ceased to be the way people thought. Aristotle was rediscovered, and the modern, educated world moved toward Aristotelian thinking.

...death is ultimately a dimension of life through which we journey into timelessness.

I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies.