No one who has understood even a fraction of what science has told us about the universe can fail to be in awe of both the cosmos and of science.

One reason why it has become harder to promote the beneficial side of emotions such as anger is that the moral vocabulary of good and bad has been replaced by the self-help lexicon of positive and negative thinking.

I think that a lot of social movements, political movements, powerful ones - certainly they form, collectively, an idea of the truth which becomes hard to question. It becomes a dogma, and from the inside it starts to look like common sense.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.

I am only me for practical purposes.

Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It's simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware of the privileges and responsibilities that brings.

We do wrong willfully when we fail to think hard about whether what we're doing is right.