We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.

You might say that the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents.

How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.

a sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long.

A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant's trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.

We can't own each other's past. The questioin is whether we have a future together.

And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a white crow. Both for a philosopher and for a scientist it can be important not to reject the possibility of finding a white crow. You might almost say that hunting for 'the white crow' is science's principal task.